


Sparks 4

by reilgun



Series: Fade [4]
Category: Parahumans Series - Wildbow
Genre: Child Abuse, Eating Disorders, Gen, Mental Health Issues, Original Character(s), Trans Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-21
Updated: 2020-04-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 03:55:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 43,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22837411
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/reilgun/pseuds/reilgun
Summary: Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw. Congrats on getting through the most emotionally intense arc of Fade so far! Here's some people who are cool and some who are not.
Series: Fade [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1514456
Comments: 1
Kudos: 10





	1. Sparks 4.0 - Cast List

**Author's Note:**

> Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw. Congrats on getting through the most emotionally intense arc of Fade so far! Here's some people who are cool and some who are not.

**Ashley:** SHE DIDN;’T SHOW UP IN THIS ARC TOO oh my godddddddddd no….. the best PRT helper girl is gone when will she be back… ;(

**Beth:** Quiet bully, wastes water.

**Blare:** Protectorate Tinker who makes sound-based equipment.

**Boomer:** Rave enthusiast. Doesn’t have powers. He’s ok.

**Boon/Andy Sinzel:** Tinker, tentative leader of the Wards. His tech speeds up natural regeneration and provides steroid effects for physical and cognitive abilities, but comes with a downside. Trying just slightly below his best, for someone he cares about.

**Breaker:** Stranger of the Mixup Marshals. Appears to be a clone of whoever is looking at them. Very short, not a child.

**Changer:** Mover of the Mixup Marshals. He’s got no limit on his speed, but can only go fast when touching living organic material. Turns out most organic material burns up if you go too fast.

**Chimera:** Mini-Eidolon, maybe a big bad villain? Maybe a vigilante? Almost guaranteed to show up at the Red Iron fight. What’s not to love? 

**Conciliator:** Tinker who can disable/revert the effects of powers. Very expensive. Used to rely on Master for some reason.

**David Walker:** Counselor from hell, turns out. Yikes.

**Failsafe:** Red Iron guy who should be avoided by Specter Shy and Trojan. And basically everyone, according to Barb.

**Flicker:** Protectorate guy who can manipulate light with his power. Not going to be helping with the Red Iron, apparently. Probably still fucked up over the foot thing, smh.

**Forge:** Red Iron Tinker who makes turrets and numbing guns.

**Iron Willy:** Oh my fucking god, one of the most dangerous most mysterious threats on the Red Iron is a fucking dude named  _ Iron Willy? _ God fucking damn it, that’s so stupid. Let me guess, metal penis? Is the power a metal fucking penis? Bullshit.

**Jaunt:** Member of the Wards. Spends a minute as a big monster. Nice Guy but not the villain.

**Legion/Flock/Whatever the fuck else:** Self cloner who has no other powers.

**Magister:** Red Iron cape who can temporarily create ‘black holes.’ Apparently a dumbass.

**Meteor Maid/Marie:** Protectorate trophy wife. Only a trophy wife because her power is so fucking devastating that she basically never gets to use it. Never explicitly made the connection between her and the girl from the Radar interlude, but fuck it. That’s just how life is. You learn things in the cast list rather than in the story itself. Why not?

**Marionettist:** Member of the Wards. Controls arms with his arms, has to have line of sight and slowly loses control as it’s lost. The best boy.

**Marissa:** Stupid bully. It’s really clear which characters I don’t give a shit about, huh?

**Master:** Thinker leader of the Mixup Marshals, now disbanded. A real bad man, and not just because of his awful taste in outfits. Able to find the creative limits of people’s powers, as well as sensing those with powers from a relative distance.

**Mixup Marshals:** No longer an organization of villains.

**Mortar:** Gamer girl Wards member. She’s a human cannonball who can stick to walls, and she takes less damage the faster she’s moving. Aggro as fuck.

**Mr. Green:** Riley’s dad. He’s a doctor and actually supportive, whoa! A real stand up dude.

**Mr. Kelly:** Quinn’s dad. The worst, not dead.

**Mr. Larson:** Social Studies teacher. A little bitch.

**Mrs. Foster:** Cape Studies teacher. Has an annoying voice.

**Mrs. Green:** Riley’s mom. Fuck off but also I mean she was nice for a long time but idk it’s complicated so like yeah.

**Ms. Holly:** Language Arts teacher. Now has trauma surrounding students leaving class in a panicked state one by one. You didn’t see it, but the rest of the class actually did that too, it was super scary. Every single one of them. Wow.

**Ms. Kelly:** Quinn’s mom. Does all of the drugs, but at least has time to do spooky night with her daughter.

**‘P’:** Mysterious girl who can teleport and writes creepy letters to be proofread by her creepy boyfriend. Her name is not actually just P I promise. Apparently she’s a god?? I’m not making a cast list section for the boyfriend i’m not doing that please you can’t make me do that he doesn’t even have a LETTER he’s just P’s boyfriend I can’t-

**Partition/Eddie:** Co-Leader of the Wards, no matter what anyone says. Invulnerable to any damage he can perceive ahead of time, with faster reaction speed. A man with a whole lot of emotional intelligence, and the words needed to pass his knowledge onto others.

**Pythia:** Protectorate precog Labyrinth. I love her so much, this poor girl.

**Quinn Kelly:** Ah.

**Radar/Carl:** Blind Protectorate member who relies on his power to see. He also has a lie detector times 100 and can fly. Less of a dick than he used to be, but still a huge dick. Trying his best?

**Red Iron:** A ruthless organization of villains whose base is public knowledge but they haven’t been taken out yet because they’re that spooky op.  _ Yet _ is the key word here. (I hope.)

**Riley Green/Shift:** Local girl experiences a proportionately small amount of anger at being severely wronged by the world - thinks she’s evil. More at 8.

**Rue/Barb:** She’s a Wards member who hurts people by hurting herself, and she’s got a zipper mouth on her costume. She’s great, I love her. Probably won’t even need to have a real thing here, soon, I can just do what I do for Quinn and Riley. Hell yeah, Ruinn rights.

**Sandra:** The only bully worth her shit. Still a little pissed about the pizza stain, but not so pissed that she’s willing to let her favorite target go away :(

**Shaker:** Brute of the Mixup Marshals. To quote my personal character list: “She can kick things so hard. So fucking hard. God damn.”

**Specter Shy:** Ward member, can only be seen when being directly looked at. Those who don’t know she’s around experience malfunctions in their powers.

**Sprawler:** Some Protectorate member, she’ll show up some day probably.

**Striker:** Blaster of the Mixup Marshals. Shoots bright lasers. Might yet have a hopeful future.

**Stroke:** Red Iron. Big Threat.

**Sudsmission:** Protectorate dork who can trap people inside of bubbles. Fucking bubbles.

**Trojan:** Protectorate member, a Breaker of some form. Some sort of people Master. Lot of those in Remure, huh?

**Trump:** Tinker of the Mixup Marshals. She makes very small copies of other Tinker tech.

**Vincent Bugayong/Quaver:** Member of the Wards. His ability to warp space is linked to his voice, and ignores the Manton effect. Rifts created fade over time. Has less control the louder he goes. A good boy.


	2. Sparks 4.1 R

There was an expectation, I had come to learn, that heroes should always push aside their issues for the greater good. It was considered irresponsible to take some time to handle whatever tragic event was going on in your civilian life, and that problem only got worse when you were a central part of a mission. It was, to put it simply, an absolute shitfest to try to manage cape life when you were as fucked up a kid as I was.

Quinn was still in the hospital until who knows when, and I didn’t have anyone else I could talk with to prepare for the fight. I only had two options, and neither of them were ideal. Either I grit my teeth and dealt with the awful week ahead of me, or I tried to make some new friends.

How many of my problems came down to not having people I could genuinely call friends? That said, how many of my problems would go away if I didn’t have to deal with other people? The third option that was always present loomed over me, but it did no good to consider it. I could isolate myself from the world, but then what? What was I supposed to do after that point? Read? As if I had the attention span for that.

No, it was pretty clear what the obvious choice was, but inaction and indecision was far easier to sit with than actually putting in the effort to get closer to people. Rue was still a little too creepy for my liking, and I wasn’t anywhere near talkative enough to fill the gap Vincent naturally left. Chats in the blue solved that issue somewhat, but then there was the other issue of the constant feeling that we were wasting time. Not to mention the fact that it was a lot harder to stay interested when I could only focus on one thing.

_ Someone else, then.  _ Shy and Marionettist were off limits for the time being, but there were still four other options: Boon, Partition, Mortar, and Jaunt. Boon had the advantage of being an actual part of the next fight, but I wasn’t so sure he even knew how to have friends. Partition, then, was a fairly obvious choice, and we’d gotten along alright before. Mortar was a bit young, and Jaunt was..  _ Oh god, would Jaunt actually be helpful here? _

I went looking for Partition, not wanting to think about that any further.  _ We were just in the meeting together, so he’s probably nearby. _ Despite my solid logic, I wasn’t able to find him in his room, the training room, the lounge, or the dining room. I couldn’t think of any other place I’d  _ ever _ seen him in, and I was getting kind of frustrated, so I gave up on looking for him that way. I was going to ask someone if he was out patrolling when I spotted Jaunt.  _ Fuck, fine. _

“Hey,” I called over to him. He stopped what he was doing - something on his phone - and strutted on over to me.

“Evening.”  _ Oh god I forgot how douchey he sounds. Okay, just.. try to be nice, let’s make some friends. Find some common ground  _ \-  _ there’s got to be  _ something _ to work with. _

“Uh, hey. I was just looking for Partition to- uh, so I was thinking I should get closer to the rest of the Wards, and I.. You’re part of that, so..”

“I see. Yes, I suppose it has been a good while since we last really spoke. Guard down, no fear of judgement. No  _ expectations _ put on us from the outside world, mhm?” The way he was saying his words made me uneasy, but the content of them was fairly relatable. It was a constant obstacle with trying to talk to the guy.  _ There’s always going to be obstacles with new people, though, so let’s just.. give it a shot. _

“Yeah, I guess. I don’t think I know.. Mm, I guess I don’t really know much about you? I know your views on the world, and I know uh.. Actually no that might be it. Maybe we could talk about..  _ why _ you have those views?” His eyes lit up in a way I hadn’t seen from him before.

“Really?” A small, surprised grin had found its way to his mouth.

“Um, sure?” I laughed under my breath, a little nervously.

“Absolutely!” The grin spread across his face, toothy and proud. “My room? Yours? Hell, even here in the hall, if you want.”

“Uh..”  _ What have I gotten myself into? _ “The lounge, maybe?”  _ Maybe someone will come by and save me. _

“The lounge it is.” He led the way, and I regretted basically every decision I had ever made up to that point in my life. It was funny how regrets stacked onto one another - like an awful Jenga tower of dumb decisions. We sat across from each other, him on the couch and me in a chair, and he just.. looked at me, for a while. He was clearly excited, but apparently wanted me to be the first to engage.

“So..”

_ “So,” _ he echoed with far more enthusiasm. “Sorry, I’m just figuring out the right place to start, going through all the possibilities in my head.” Another long pause followed.

“How about the beginning?” I offered.  _ Maybe if it’s linear he’ll repeat himself less. _

“Perfect, yes.” He adjusted himself and leaned back in his seat. “So, you should know that you are one of the first  _ ever _ to hear these words.”  _ I wonder why? _ “To start at the beginning, the  _ true _ beginning, means going a couple years back to when I was a young, foolish fourteen year old. Up to that point, I had gobbled up the notion that you could push past every obstacle you face with.. love, maybe? The power of friendship? Determination?”

“And you found something better?”  _ Wait, no, shut up. Don’t engage, it’ll go faster if you just shut up. _

“Exactly. Not all at once, but I realized that outright smashing through your problems was not a viable option. It leaves debris, chunks here and there, and that- it’s got a life of its own, really. It grows and evolves into even  _ more _ problems, more than before.

“No, to deal with your issues you have to deal with  _ all _ of the issue. Demolish every piece - confront the reality of it rather than letting it bite you in the ass later. You don’t solve your problems with magic or praying or wishful thinking, you solve them with  _ persistence. _ Being thorough, it’s the only way.”

“Uhuh,” I mumbled.  _ Why can’t you just say things in a way that doesn’t make you sound like a total asshead? _

“It wasn’t until my trigger event that I realized the most crucial part of this strategy, though. Put a lot into a new kind of perspective, you know? Though I was being thorough, I wasn’t being _efficient.”_ _Fuck, can you stop stressing every other word? You aren’t saying anything that groundbreaking._ “Taking things head on is rarely the best strategy. Like with my power, sometimes there are hard limits, and you’re not going to get much if you just drill away at them. It’s the same as before, really, wishful thinking. You have to be _clever,_ you have to _work around_ the shit.

“So how have I done that? How have I turned the issue of my power around and approached it from the side? Simple, I just-”

“Wait,” I interrupted, holding my hand up to make sure he got the message. Marionettist was walking along, talking to the air. A fraction of a second later, Shy popped into view. It didn’t take even a second for me to decide that working on sorting out  _ that _ whole thing would be better than any more of Jaunt’s bullshit. “One sec, sorry, be back in a little bit.” I got up and rushed over to the two, ignoring whatever response Jaunt had.

“Hey guys!” I called out, stopping them before they got too far away. Shy didn’t seem too happy about my intrusion.

“Oh, hey girl. Haven’t seen you around much since the big party you threw, you been busy?”  _ Party? My.. coming out talk?  _ For a shamefully long moment, I thought he might not have actually realized what had happened.  _ No, he’s not stupid. At least not  _ that _ stupid. _

“Oh, uh, you know.” Shy frowned at me, knowing full well that nobody else would see her do it. “Uh. Yeah, I thought um.. I was just talking with Jaunt, didn’t want to cut him off too long, so maybe we could use my power and-”

“No,” Shy barked.

“Aw, come on Shy.” Marionnetist wrapped an arm around her playfully. She smiled, despite how clearly she wanted to assert herself. “It’s neat. What do you call it, the blue?” I nodded. “The  _ blue.”  _ Stars flashed in his eyes. “I only got a look at the place  _ once _ the whole time Shifty here’s been with us. Just a little bit, for me?”

“Mmn..” She grumbled a bit, but eventually reached her hand out.

“Yay.” Marionettist cheered, clapping a couple times before putting his hand beside hers. I looked at them and hesitated for a couple seconds while I made sure both Marionettist and I were looking at her, then reached out and brought us all in.  _ She’s really into you if she’s willing to do this again, huh? _

The others lingered for a moment, with Shy snapping out a fraction of a second before Marionettist. She immediately squinted, but he chose to look around, eyes wide. While he was distracted, she stared at me and slowly shook her head.  _ What’s that supposed to mean?  _ I knew the general idea, obviously, but couldn’t really make sense of the specifics.  _ Fuck it, if you’re gonna be vague and weird about this, then I’ve got no choice but to be a bit of a bitch back. _

“What’s up, Shy?” Marionettist turned to face us, Shy suppressing a scowl. She wasn’t particularly good at concealing her body language or facial expressions, probably because she so rarely had to. At least she had the advantage of my power, making it pretty hard to tell what was going on unless you had the experience I’d gotten in the last month.  _ Month and a half? _ The absence of a response urged Marionettist to speak up instead.

“Something the matter?”

“Nope!” Shy chimed. I hesitated again, but I had to do something about this.  _ All in. _

“Shy’s not comfortable with me being around you, and I figured we could try to sort things out.”

“What? Why?” He nudged at her with a shoulder.

“I, no, it’s..” She shrunk into herself in a way similar to what I tended to do when things were going badly. Or maybe it was just what I used to do? I  _ had  _ been taking things head on a bit more, as of late. That said, it wasn’t like I couldn’t sympathize. We both had powers that let us disappear, and being without that at a time like this must’ve been tough.

“Okay, no, it’s a bit more complicated than that,” I said. “I don’t want this to seem like.. she was really civil about it, and I’ve been avoiding you a lot myself. It’s as much my fault this hasn’t happened as hers, so.. yeah, sorry, I kind of expected retaliation so I came out ready for that. Had a hard few weeks.”

“I can’t pretend that eases my concerns much..” Shy mumbled.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Marionettist asked for me.  _ Maybe she’ll respond better if it’s you rather than me. _

“Well, I mean..” She sighed and leaned on him a little, talking low. “I don’t know, you know how guys are.”

“What?” He blinked. My power suppressed a significant chunk of my emotional reaction, an aspect of it that I’d come to appreciate quite a bit more than anything else.

“Well, no, I know she’s-” She looked at me. “I know you’re not a boy. But it’s like.. you know? Testosterone and stuff.”

“And him?” I gestured over at the actual boy in the conversation.

“He’s different.”

“Come on, Shy..” he muttered.

“Mm, I.. Sorry..” She looked down, ashamed.

“What?”  _ What am I missing here? _

“No, it’s.. you’re right, yeah. Sorry. Maybe we can just drop this and-”

“No,” he cut her off. “It’s fine. I trust her well enough, especially after..” His gaze wandered to me. “Well, you were pretty fuckin’ brave if you ask me. Throwing yourself out there.”

“Uh.. Thank you?”  _ I mean, I appreciate it, but what the fuck is going on here? Also, I mean, I didn’t really have a choice, so.. _

“So, what Shy means when she says I’m different is that I don’t have as much boy juice flowing through me or whatever. I’m intersex, if you know the term.”

“Yeah.” I’d come across it somewhat when I was looking for information on trans stuff, but I hadn’t really looked into it.  _ Probably shitty to kinda wish that were me. _

“Well, there you go. Can mean a few things, but in my case that’s the only part that really matters.  _ That said..” _ He turned his attention back to Shy, who’d started clinging to his arm. “I’m not better than most boys because of something like that. I’m better than most boys because I know how to accessorize.”

“Oh, shut up.” She smiled, against herself.

“But honestly? That but unironically. Only reason I’m cool is because I realized I don’t have to adhere to stupid boy standards. I like to think I’d be this way even without my condition, but it sure helped me start questioning things in the first place. There’s a lotta people who wouldn’t even think of me as a boy, so I took the concept for myself and redefined it. Not a single asshole in this world can tell me I don’t look good in mascara.” He winked at me.

“Now,  _ this _ girl” - he gestured to me - “This fucking girl did the same thing I did without anything pushing her that way. Takes a lot to be willing to introspect that hard, and doing something about that is a whole other thing. And I mean, seriously Shy, if anything she’s less of a threat than  _ you.” _

“She’s-” She scrunched up her face and lowered her volume, trying her best to only be heard by Marionettist. “She grabbed me and brought me in here without even asking. This place  _ sucks, _ and I had no warning.”

“For a mission, right?”

“Yeah, but-”

“And did she apologize?”

“..Yeah..”

“Well there you go.”

“I..” She looked at me and frowned. “I’ll think about it.” He nudged her again and she nudged back harder. “But, mm.. Sorry for judging you. You’re less scary than I was expecting, and.. I guess Marion gets this stuff better than I realized.”

“Ah, it’s.. it’s okay, Shy.” I didn’t entirely feel that way, but it was clear she was trying. If she was willing to give me a shot, after all this dumb stuff, then I could do the same for her.  _ At least you’re not like Mom. _ “Sorry too, again.”

“Mm..”

“Well, there we go, big happy family.” He wrapped his arms around us and pulled us in for a group hug. Neither Shy nor I were particularly convinced, but we went along with it. “Now let’s get out of here, you can get back to your Jaunt talk.”  _ Fuck, right. _

"Uh, or not? Um.. I mean, we didn't like  _ really _ solve anything, right?" I looked between the two of them, begging to be spared for at least a little more time. Of course, however, my body language didn’t come through. I’d gotten too used to Quinn’s ability to tell what was going on in the blue - no one else could see between the lines like she could. Even with how much time I’d spent here, I still had to work at it a little bit.  _ But I guess that won’t be the case anymore, because of the David shit.. _

“Shift?” Marionettist interrupted a train of thought I was apparently getting lost in.

“Uh, yeah, sorry, hi.”

“You okay..? You seemed like you just got shot into space. Didn’t respond for a while.”

“Uh..”  _ How much have I been spacing out in here? Is it becoming second nature? Need to fix that. _ “How long?”

“I don’t-”

“Not exactly, I know, but about how long?” He considered, but Shy answered for him.

“At least two minutes.” Marionettist nodded. “It was freaky.” She frowned. “Can we go now?”

“Ah, yeah” - I shifted us all out, Shy immediately disappearing from my peripheral vision - “sorry.”

“Yeah,” Shy said. Marionettist nudged the air. “It’s okay, though.”

“Thanks for talking with us, Shifty. I’ll go make sure Shy makes good on her promise to think about it, okay?” He winked at me again and they started walking off.

“Uh- yeah, seeya!” He waved back at me as they went into his room. I sighed and turned around to find Jaunt, patiently waiting as if nothing had happened.  _ Well, not nothing. _ I walked on over,  _ slowly, _ and sat down across from him again.

“That was fast-” He cut himself off, excited at his own realization. “Ahh, yes, the  _ power. _ You’re creative, Shift. Very creative. That’s what I was saying, really, that’s what my trigger event taught me.”  _ We’re really just going back on this? I haven’t even said anything yet, you’re just gonna- _ “You can’t just face a problem head on, you need to go around it, you need to be  _ creative _ with the issue and with your solution to it.”  _ Guess so. _ I adjusted in my chair and got ready to pay minimal attention to an hour long rant.

Jaunt went off about the same few things over and over again, with slightly new pieces brought in every once in a while. After who knows how long of trying to be at least kinda respectful, I just tuned him out completely to think about things that mattered.

_ I hope Quinn’s okay. I hate having to be here and.. Fuck, when they said I had to come in today, I probably didn’t have to stick around for this long. Probably could be visiting Quinn right this second. If she’s even allowed visitors right now.. I just wish I knew anything about what was going on with her? But I’m scared to, I think. That’s why I went and decided to talk to people here. I’m too scared to support my best friend, for some reason. _

_ It’s.. I mean I know why, hospitals are.. weird. It’s so fucking stupid that I’ve got a doctor for a Dad, that I know all this shit about first aid and.. and I’ve seen so many gorey fucked up things, and yet I’m still afraid of hospitals. Not like I even know why, what is there to be afraid of? Am I secretly terrified of sterile utensils? Like.. it’s stupid. _

_ Ugh, time to move on. I’ll go visit her once Jaunt’s done. What other critical failing of mine can I hyperfocus on? Hmm, how about this fight I’m not at all ready for? Pretty fucking idiotic that I’m freaking out about this when I’m literally going to be doing practically nothing. Not a single thing, basically! Get the important people where they need to be, put someone else’s tech on a turret, and that’s it. _

_ It would be so fucking easy to go against them, but the fact that I want to makes  _ no _ sense. How is it even possible to be pissed that I’m getting the worst job ever and also to be freaking out about having to do anything? What the actual fuck is wrong with me that that can happen? More and more I have to wonder if I’m the one who needs psychiatric attention rather than Quinn. Get what I ask for, though, right? Free, insurance paid therapy. Woooooooo! _

_ How the fuck is one supposed to prove that they’re trans to a stranger? I get that they can’t hand hormones out to just anyone, but the idea that I have to sit down with some stranger and just have a chat about how ‘girl’ I am is.. guh, I wish I could’ve waited. I wish this wasn’t happening so fast, or that I’d just told Dad to wait a little bit, or.. I wish Mom was still around, I don’t even know what’s going on with her, and.. _

_ How am I supposed to do all this stuff when I don’t have any time to adjust to all the  _ other  _ hectic bullshit going on? I can spend all the time in the world hiding away in the blue, but it doesn’t do anything. The world carries on at the same pace immediately after, there’s no rest. It’s like being in a car, or the PRT van; I can’t just shift out to the sidewalk and be fine. I can get a slight break, but the relief is.. it’s nothing, it’s fake. It never actually slows down. I’m just stuck here, constantly moving, and the world just doesn’t ever let me slow down.. _

_ Yet here this guy goes, just talking endlessly about how he finally learned the kindergarten lesson of thinking outside the box. For all he cares about, for all his angst, what does any of it even amount to? I mean, how do you have some life changing event - in this case a  _ trigger _ event - and just.. become more dense? How can you think you’re opening your eyes when you’re closing them? _

“Hey, can I say something real quick?” I interrupted something he was saying, not sure what specifically.

“Uh-” He stuttered. “Okay?”

“Okay, thank you. I..” I took a deep breath. “Phew, uh, wow. I don’t really have anything to say, I guess, I just needed to hear my own voice for a second. You know?”

“Absolutely. So where was I?”  _ Sigh. _ “Right, the  _ elegance _ of ingenuity when-”

“You two, to the Protectorate meeting hall.” I looked over to the intruding voice, and-

“Oh, Ashley!” The girl paused, blinked a couple times, and looked over. Apparently my mask wasn’t particularly good at hiding my face, because she pieced together who I was pretty quickly.

“Oh, hey girl!” She smiled and waved. “Didn’t see you there, haze of work, you know? Need to round up everyone, but it’s good to see you again!”

“Yeah, you too!” She gave a quick nod and briskly walked out of sight.  _ Wait, she probably already knew it was me. She works here, it’s..  _ I turned my attention back to Jaunt to try to distract myself from how dumb I was. The effort lasted roughly half a second before I was back on the fact that I had spaced out in the dumbest possible ways each time I’d been around her.  _ Is that.. do I have a crush? Was I wrong and just- I mean, they say people do stupid shit when they’re in love, is this like.. _

No, I needed to go. I gestured for Jaunt to follow and headed in that direction. Some point along the way, I shifted in to get away from him. The door was open, so I just slipped on in and took a seat.  _ If I wanted, I could just sit here for hours and think about all that confusing shit..  _ I shifted out, if only because there was a chance this was about an emergency that needed all of us  _ and _ our powers.

The only real difference between the Ward meeting hall and the Protectorate meeting hall was the location in the building and the size of the room. Even with that considered, they were fairly identical. The  _ real _ difference was in the ‘adultness’ of it all. They even got a coffee machine, as if half the Wards didn’t drink coffee on their own time.

People trickled in, and it seemed that when Ashley said she was going to round  _ everyone _ up, she meant it. Everyone who wasn’t out on patrol made their way in within a couple minutes. A few members of the Protectorate had to stand because of how many of us were packed in one place. Boon was also standing, but he was at the front with Blare, Radar, and Sudsmission, so it seemed he was a part of the situation. Once everyone who was going to come did so, the room didn’t feel all too big.

“Heroes!” Radar called out, silencing what little chatter had been fluttering through the crowd. “I’m sorry for bringing you all here on such short notice, especially when a good number of us just got done with another meeting not too long ago. However, this is a matter of some urgency.  _ Some, _ so it’s said, does not mean  _ a great deal. _ There is no immediate threat, but the information is important to be had as soon as possible, on Pythia’s word.”  _ Oh fuck. _

“Those who are not currently present will be brought up to speed as soon as possible,” Suds said. “Once again, this is not anything you need to be panicking over. We’re just ensuring the best odds for us down the line.” I wasn’t particularly convinced, but there wasn’t enough time to freak out before Radar got into the details.

“A little over an hour and a half ago, near the end of the Red Iron meeting, Blare discovered a red, unmarked envelope on his desk. We aren’t sure when it arrived, as it did not go through the inspection process. Inside was a concerning letter signed off by a ‘P’, who claims to be heading here in some time.

“After Blare reported this to Sudsmission, she did some investigating. By the time I was available, she’d narrowed things down somewhat. I assisted her, and after some searching we discovered an up-and-coming villain duo currently terrorizing Portland, Oregon. They’re going by the names Precursor and Zenith, with the two of them identifying as ‘Ascendants’.

“The specifics of their powers aren’t yet known, but we do know that Precursor is capable of teleportation over long ranges, and Zenith has potential to gain some low level of control over those around him. On top of this, one of them is a Tinker who has outfitted the both of them in power armor. Both Thinkers from the Portland Protectorate have confirmed that these two are the only members of the team, but that should not be taken as irrefutably true. There is always room for error. With time, we should have better information.

“What we know for certain is that Precursor has been working to live up to her namesake by delivering handwritten letters to all of the Tinkers in an area they plan on attacking ahead of time. Once we found this out, I sought out Boon, who confirmed he received a similar letter earlier in the day.”

“All of this is surely concerning,” Sudsmission stepped in, “but Pythia has shed some light on the situation that should help ease everyone’s worries.”

“Right, of course.”  _ Don’t act like you weren’t going to keep on pouring tension on us if Suds wasn’t here. _ “At the absolute earliest, these two will be arriving in the middle of December, so there isn’t much of a rush. We all have plenty of time to prepare, and it’s important that you all focus on the  _ present. _ Rest assured that this will be dealt with when the time comes, and you will be told anything else we find out.” A few moments went by before anyone said anything else - no one dared to be the one to test if Radar was finished.

“So,” Suds cut through the silence. “Any questions?”

“What are the specifics of Pythia’s statements?” Partition asked. “It’s not rare for there to be hidden meanings, as I understand it.”

“I think it would be best to leave those details to the few that they were intended for,” Radar said.

“Understood.” Another silence followed their exchange. Nobody seemed to have anything else to add.

“I guess not,” Suds concluded. “Then, Radar, are we done?”

“Apparently so. You may now leave, we’ll keep you updated.” With that, a significant chunk of the group dissipated. Part of me wanted to stick around like I usually did, but it seemed like a good time to leave and go visit Quinn. I left the room and went to go gather my stuff, when-

“So, where were we?” I blinked and slowly turned my head over to a preying Jaunt.

“Can’t talk, my friend’s dying.” Shock overcame him - he took half a step back.

“I’m sorry?”

“Yep.” I walked past him and continued down the path to my room. The words had come out without even a moment of consideration, slipping through the very,  _ very _ degraded filter I’d gotten from the day’s stress. I’d deal with it later.

It wasn’t until a couple more quick, meaningless interactions before I remembered I could shift away the hassle. I passed through the haze of barely identifiable outlines, and couldn’t help but take note of how hard it was to actually tell who anyone was in the blue. When it was only a handful of people, all of which I knew the rough positioning of before shifting, it was a different story. As I walked through this crowd of strangers, though, it became incredibly apparent how uncreative most costumes were. Mine included, as it turned out.

I got to my room, shifted out, and changed into my civilian clothes. Once my things were gathered, I headed down to the front door. Of course, because I had used my power, people were still in the process of leaving the meeting room. It made the process of getting downstairs a little harder, but had the upside of my power coming back up right around the point where I reached the door.

As had become a bit of a habit, I shifted in the instant my hand touched the handle, then started sprinting to the hospital. It probably wouldn’t be much faster than riding the bus on my end, but Quinn deserved as much time with me as she could get. I didn’t know the exact path to it from base, but I knew the general direction to go. With luck, I’d shift out less than a mile away.

_ Actually, now that I think about it, Vincent wasn’t at the meeting. Maybe he’s been hanging out with Quinn? Are you even allowed to have more than one non-family visitor? Or.. do I count as family? I should, right? I mean, like, we’re basically sisters, but does the hospital care about that? Well, obviously they wouldn’t  _ care, _ but do they like.. see that as valid enough to let me visit if there’s a non-family visitor already? If that’s even a rule in the first place, which it might not be. _

_ Okay, just, what am I going to say to her when I get there? Probably not safe to talk about any of the hero stuff. Or maybe it is? I mean, it’s a government building. They’re like.. on our side, I think. But maybe there’s some villain with super hearing. Then again, I guess that’s an issue at any point in time? But.. then again again, villains probably pass through the hospital a lot more often than any other random place. _

_ Do villains have their own special hospitals? I mean, it would be kind of suspicious to get out of a fight and then come through the front door with strikingly similar injuries to those the villain group would’ve gotten. Especially, hah, if you came in all as a group. ‘Huh, so the six of you all got hurt at the same time? Just recently, just after this big fight at Boomer’s rave? Oh, well why don’t you just come take a seat right over here.’ _

_ Obviously that wouldn’t be a thing, since they’ve got Boon’s tech. Or had it, I mean. I can’t believe they’re like.. gone? I remember when they first made an attack, first showed up. I played a part in that.. Despite all of the shit I did wrong, I mean.. we got them. I helped us get them. Maybe it sets some bad expectations, but I mean.. fuck. I can’t believe I haven’t really taken a moment to just congratulate myself? I’m a hero. _

Having eventually found my way to the hospital, I located a safe spot to shift out of and went inside. The receptionist was nice, filling me in on how Quinn had been moved to another room. It was almost certainly a necessary part of her job, but that didn’t mean I couldn’t appreciate it. I took the elevator upstairs and spent a few minutes looking for the room.

“Oh shit, hey.” I turned to look to the room behind me, and there she was.

“Hey!” I rushed to her side. She looked.. better? The IV was gone, at least, and she seemed fairly healthy compared to before. “I can’t believe I missed you, how are you?”

“This place sucks, dude.” Well, she was definitely  _ acting  _ more alive.

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, they’ve got like..  _ the  _ worst food ever.”

“Oh damn.” I brought a chair over and took a seat.  _ Maybe sometimes we don’t need to talk about big hero stuff.  _ I smiled at her. “Tell me all about it.”


	3. Sparks 4.2

“..father doesn’t visit .. isn’t paying .. mother hasn’t picked up .. .. a family friend .. doctor ..”  _ What are you saying? Where are.. where’s, guh..  _ I moved my arm and something beeped.  _ Ah.. ah.. _

* * *

“Has anything like this happened before?”

“No.” By some definition of ‘like this’, I wasn’t lying. She wrote something down.

“And you say you diagnosed  _ yourself _ as anorexic?”

“Yes.”  _ Don’t act like that’s so weird. Not that fucking hard to figure out. _

“About how long ago was that?”

“A year? I don’t know.”

“You didn’t think to get help until this incident?”

“Of course I thought about it.”  _ How the fuck couldn’t I? _

“Why didn’t you?”

“Because it wasn’t that bad. This isn’t even all that related to the anorexia, what happened.”

“You starved yourself for at least two days.”

“Yeah, and it’s not why I’m in here.”

“Is that to say that you’ve starved yourself for this long  _ before _ this incident?”

“No,” I lied.

“Mm.” She wrote something down again. “What’s the longest you’ve gone without eating before this?”  _ Just going to ignore everything I said, then, huh? _

“A day, usually.”

“Usually?”

“Yeah, usually.”

“What do you mean by that? Do you mean you  _ regularly _ go entire days without eating?”  _ Shut the fuck up. _

“No, of course not, just that that’s usually the longest I go.”

“That’s not what I asked.”

“Yes it is.”

“No, I asked what the longest you’ve gone without eating was, before this most recent incident.”

“Right, and I’m saying it’s usually a day.” She rubbed the bridge of her nose and groaned. After a moment, she regained her composure, offering me a sympathetic smile.

“Look, kid, I’m trying to help you here. Can you please cooperate with me?”  _ Fuck you, don’t call me a kid. I know what I’m doing, don’t act like I’m some idiot. I’m not even underweight. Whatever. _

“Okay.”

“Thank you.” I nodded, and she took a deep breath. “So, what was the longest you’ve gone without eating before this last Monday?”

“A day, usually.” I smirked.

* * *

_ Why these socks? The flumpy.. lombering little.. things. On the bottom. I hate you, socky bits. You’re so.. rough and.. and.. swimple.. and.. And the whole outfit’s all so dumb.. The big flowy thing, like a dumb dress.. So glad Rue’s not here- Barb, so glad not.. here.. to see me.. _

* * *

They watched as I ate, like they didn’t trust me with the food. I’d eaten everything they’d given me, and they knew I didn’t want to have to get the IV put back in.  _ I guess, like everyone else, you see me as just another idiotic little girl. Like I’m some fucking Marissa, too stupid for my own good. Fuck you. _ I took an aggressively large bite, as if that would somehow spite them. The food, trash as it was, at least outperformed the sludge they served at school.

There was homework I was expected to do with all my free time, but the last thing I needed was to have actual definitive proof of how much I needed David’s assistance. I was surely fucking myself over, as I’d then just have a whole stockpile of the stuff later when his effects had completely faded, but.. Fuck it, I could at least pretend that the haze of all the hospital shit would do more to impact my progress than being without some asshole’s prodigy.. pet.. thing.

_ Okay, change the topic, let’s not start panicking and choking on some fucking bread. Especially not in front of these assholes - what a shit way to go. ‘Quinn Kelly, Age 16. Died in the hospital before she even got to second base.’  _ Despite purposefully aiming to avoid choking, I choked a bit from laughing at my own joke. It was little enough of an issue that my captor didn’t need to step in, but it had somewhat ruined my cool demeanor.

_ Whatever, let’s move on to more pressing matters. Riley’s not been around since the first night. I get she’s busy, probably got hero shit going on, but.. I guess I thought we’d patched shit up a little? Maybe I was being naive. Wouldn’t be the first time I put way too much trust into one of the few people I find at all respectable. Wouldn’t be the first time I got fucked over. _

_ She’s not like him. No matter what, she’s not like him. She wouldn’t use her power on me, she.. Damn it, just eat. Just fucking eat, stop thinking about sad shit. Just eat this stupid bread and move the fuck on. I’m getting out soon, I’ve got to be, and I can’t be moping around over this bullshit. _

_ Maybe I could see if Vincent would be down to visit if they let me use my  _ god damn  _ phone. Fuck am I going to do, text myself to death? How these dumbasses can think they’re so smart when they don’t even understand something as simple as ‘no, I’m not suicidal, and even if I was, it wasn’t because of anyone I could fucking text’ is wild. Fuck this place. _

* * *

“You know, you could have been a part of society again by now if you’d just work with us.”

“I know.”

“We can’t help you unless you open up, and we can’t let you go until we know you’re safe.”

“Maybe I don’t want to go.” She paused at that for a moment.

“Do you not?”

“I don’t know, you tell me. What happens then? You just keep me here forever?”

“No, you’d be moved to the Psychiatric Ward.”

“What, with the insane bunch? You think I’m  _ crazy?”  _ I bulged my eyes out on the last word and threw on a small grin.

“No.” I cut the act and looked off to the side, at the machinery.  _ You wouldn’t, would you?  _ “Plenty of people in there like yourself, just depressed teens who need a little help.”

“Oh great, the  _ baby _ psycho bin. Great.” She didn’t seem to pay my response any mind, moving on along down her conversational path.

“However, I don’t think you need that  _ level _ of help. Frankly, it would be a waste of time and resources on everyone’s part.” Mr. Green was the one paying for this, and I didn’t really want to fuck him over.  _ Of course Dad lets me down here, too. Can’t even throw a few punches back. _

“Then what level do I need?”

“You’ll be visited at your home for checkups twice a week. Group therapy is optional, and while I’d highly recommend it, I suspect that won’t be something you consider.”  _ Hassle. Just fucking hassle. _ How Riley’s dad had managed to work things out how he did was a complete fucking mystery to me, but I highly doubted his arrangement would go so far as to let these visits take place at his house.

“Does it have to be at home?”

“I guess it doesn’t  _ have _ to be-”

“Good, I’ll work out the details later with whoever will be visiting me.” She blinked in a way that just  _ screamed _ her thoughts. ‘Thank god that won’t be me’, or something along those lines.  _ The feeling’s mutual, bitch. _

* * *

The haze of hospital life had gotten pretty standard - over forty-eight hours compounding into a familiar feeling of dull, aching boredom. I was fairly pleasantly surprised, then, when my best friend decided to show up after  _ two days _ of avoiding me.

“Oh shit, hey.” I tried my best to avoid letting my conflicted feelings slip into my voice. She stopped wandering around outside my room and turned to look at me.

“Hey!” She rushed to my side. “I can’t believe I missed you, how are you?”  _ Oh, yeah, you ‘missed’ me? Didn’t show. _

“This place sucks, dude.”  _ Ever the chameleon - a constant charade, constantly necessary. Even with you, it seems. _

“Oh yeah?”

“Yeah, they’ve got like..  _ the  _ worst food ever.”

“Oh damn.” Riley brought a chair over and took a seat, then smiled at me. “Tell me all about it.”

“I mean, what can I really say? It’s only a step above school lunches, and it’s three meals a day. Yuck as fuck.”  _ The eggs are okay, though. _

“Ew.” She frowned. “I would’ve brought you something If I’d known.”  _ Maybe you would’ve known if you’d visited at all. _

“Nah, they’re making me eat a lot already, snacks would push it into really awful territory.”  _ And puking isn’t an option here, even if I were the kind of girl to do that shit. _

“Ah, gotcha.” There was a lull in the conversation, a little bit where we just looked at each other.  _ Why are you even here, now of all times? Why would you show up when I’m getting out in a few hours, but not at all before then? Were you seriously just too busy with school and hero shit? Too busy for me? Even Vincent came to visit for a short bit after you filled him in, just to like.. sit next to me for a little while. I expect this from Barb, but not you. _

“So what’ve you been up to? Vaguely, of course.” As frustrated as I was, I wanted to make sure she didn’t say anything stupidly revealing when I was being so heavily monitored.

“Uh.. Planning. Group assignment, got paired with a lot of people I don’t know very well.”  _ There we go, you’re getting better at this. _

“You at least get in the same group as Vincent?”

“Nope.”

“Damn.” I’d been hoping for some sort of sign as to who she’d be up against, but there probably wasn’t any way to do that without giving the game away. “Well, I’m getting out in a few hours. They just have to work out some files or something. So I should be back at school come tomorrow, unless something  _ terrible _ and  _ unexpected _ happens.”

“Oh, that’s good. It’s been weird without you.”  _ Not too long ago things were reversed. _

“Yeah. I’ve got some outpatient shit to deal with, by the way. You mind if some doctor guy comes by like twice a week to make sure I’m eating? Not a huge deal if no, we can meet up at the park or some shit.”

“Uh, yeah, sure? You should probably check with my dad, though.”

“Right. Could you, maybe? I’m not sure I can ask him for any favors at the moment, what with everything he’s done here.”

“I mean, he’s.. I don’t think he’ll find it any different if it’s directly from your mouth or mine.”

“Maybe, but.. I don’t know, I feel weird about even talking to him right now.”

“Mm. Yeah, I can.”  _ Thank fuck. _

“Thanks, you’re the best.” She nodded in acknowledgement, and the conversation dipped again. Before we could start something up again, a nurse came in.

“Ms. Kelly?” I lazily looked over at him.

“Yeah?”

“You’re in luck, we got through the paperwork a bit faster than expected.”  _ Well, shit. Into the free world. _

* * *

Sleeping alongside Riley again was nice, but exceptionally weird. There was a very real possibility that it was all on my end, but tensions didn’t seem to be anywhere near as defused as I’d been hoping.  _ I mean, I feel like she would’ve come to visit sooner if that weren’t the case. _

So I sat there, in the dark, watching her slow breaths.  _ In and out, in and out, in and out.  _ Effortless, like in these moments she didn’t have to hesitate. To hold back, to be fearful of what each noise would signal to others. She didn’t have to hide herself in front of everyone, to keep her volume down no matter what the cost to her own well being.

She’d been doing it less when awake, too. There seemed to be a dip in her mental health shortly after the trigger, and then an incline ever since. To be blunt, it seemed that the exact time things started going well for her was when I pulled back. It seemed like she didn’t need me anymore, and better yet was flourishing in my absence. It  _ seemed  _ \- in the chill of it all, the night and silence - that there were better ways for air to travel.

I gently poked her. No movement, no reaction. Gently, I moved into a better position. Nothing.  _ Gently, _ I hovered my hands over her neck.  _ Wouldn’t it just be so, that the worthless bastard of a girl be left in the villain’s shoes? The crazy, deranged cunt who held the hero back from the start? A tragedy, something nobody could have expected. A label, made only for those who don’t deserve it. ‘Riley Green, Age 16. Better  _ without _ and better  _ than _ her supposed best friend and apparent murderer, Quinn Kelly.’ She, of rage and envy, and malleable innocence. _

I stopped. I pulled myself away from her and rested my head on my pillow. I stared at the wall, thankful of and damning the knowledge that she would have shifted before I could finish her. I wished, for all of my doubt in them, that any gods would have mercy on me. My sins, each and every one of them condensed into the girl behind me. That I had resisted the temptation in the face of all this had to count for something, right?

What had even happened? Looking back to just moments ago, it felt so hazy. I could recount the events, but it didn’t make sense. It felt, at times, that I was constantly at odds with another me. That I had compartmentalized all of my pain and suffering into..  _ I don’t know, an evil Quinn? A far more broken Quinn, at least. _

Most of the time I wanted nothing more than to keep Riley or anyone else I loved from experiencing what I’d gone through. There were pauses in that, though;  _ breaks _ in who I was and what I stood for. Moments where all that had been done to me begged to explode outward. Moments where I wanted to understand, maybe, what the fuck they’d gotten out of it. To understand why people hurt me, why I was subject to all of this shit. Repeated offenses, too. It was so often the same people, so there must have been  _ something  _ that kept them coming.

Hovering there, I’d felt nothing. There was no ‘kick’ - no high that made it all click into place. Were they, too, just trying to figure out what those who came before them did it for? Was I doomed to follow in their footsteps?

I drifted off, fearful of myself, and hoped that tomorrow would bring with it another day.

* * *

Whether it was from whatever the  _ fuck _ happened the night before, the lack of David’s influence, something else, or a hellish combination of all of that, school was  _ awful.  _ Ms. Holly’s class had been a disaster, with words deciding to just stop working all of a sudden, and now Mr. Nelson’s science bullshit was just..  _ It just doesn’t make any fucking sense. _

What was I supposed to do? How was I supposed to look at this shit and  _ get  _ it? How much of this was any actual issue, and how much was just me psyching myself out? If I pushed myself, sure, I could find the logic behind it, but none of it came naturally. I didn’t even have Vincent or Riley to distract me, and unlike any other time in the past two years, I would have been completely fucked over by it. I didn’t have the time or mental fortitude to do that while also managing schoolwork.

It was after the fourth time I’d had to put actual effort into understanding an equation that I asked to go to the bathroom. Thankfully, my reputation allowed me to do whatever I wanted, a lot of the time. I probably hadn’t even needed to use the period excuse a few days back.  _ Not like I get those regularly enough to not just lie about it. _ Perks of the eating disorder, I supposed.

I stood outside of the girl’s bathroom, hesitating to enter. A momentary distraction came in the form of wondering if Riley had done the exact same thing. Our reasoning was different, but it was nice to spot commonalities between us. Usually they were things I’d subconsciously conditioned her to do, but this one wasn’t like that. No, I simply felt like if I went in that I’d be losing the option to do something else. Something I knew I really, really shouldn’t have been considering.

“Uh, hey?”

“Mm?” I turned to face the voice, ready to clear up any confusion as to why the fuck I was staring at a bathroom door, but no one was there. “Mm.”

I’d started hallucinating, since Monday. The extent to which, I couldn’t be sure. For all I knew, some of my doctor visits had been completely imagined.

It was another obvious effect of David’s work being gone. Whether he knew it or not, he’d clearly been suppressing some of the worst of my symptoms. As such, that one little word said by nobody served to make my decision for me.

I left the bathroom behind and headed downstairs, following the path on autopilot. I’d gone to his office from every other point of the school enough times that I didn’t even have to think about it, and that was crucial. If I’d been focused on it,  _ really _ focused, I surely would have changed my mind.

“Hey,” I said, casually walking into the main office. The secretary almost seemed more surprised at my lack of outburst than any of the shit I’d become infamous for.  _ Knew my act was getting stale. _

“Ah, Ms. Kelly, hi.” I walked over to her and stretched my neck.

“David around?”

“He’s available, yes. Want me to call him in?”

“Uhuh, thank you.” Her eyes lingered on me for a moment, as if the idea of me being polite was  _ completely _ out of the question. It wasn’t like I had room to be offended by that, so I walked off to the side while she called.  _ What are the chances he’s been making me more violent? Maybe the time immediately after coming down from one of his effects is like.. maybe there’s a kickback of some sort. Then, after a couple days, you go back to normal? Is this normal for me? It was certainly around the time things began with him that I started fighting back.. _

“Quinn, it’s good to see you.”

“Mm?” I blinked - apparently I’d entered his office. “Right, yeah.” I took a seat, a few inches further back from his desk than usual, and watched him.

“I heard what happened, are you-?”

“Yeah, I’m okay.” I squinted at him. “Do you not realize I broke out of your effect?”

“Of course I realize.”

“Then why are you.. why haven’t you done anything about it?”

“I told you then, I didn’t want things to go how they had. Using my power like that.. I regretted it even in the moment. I never wanted to do something like that, especially not to you.” I stared at him, studying his facial expressions. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Mm.”

“If you ask it, I will never use my power on you again.” My breath hitched - I grit my teeth.

“That’s.. why I came here. To figure that out- what I want.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I don’t know, I.. I told Rey, won’t lie.” David closed his eyes and nodded, apparently expecting that already. “Yeah, he was pretty pissed, but I don’t know. I got him to agree to not saying anything, and I think he’s followed through. Given I went behind his back, I think he doesn’t want to do the same to me. But I guess I’m doing it again, since I said I wouldn’t do this. Come here, I mean.”

“And yet, despite how much you regret what you did to him before, you..” He sighed. “You’ve gotten used to my support.”

“I get it now, why you were so against me leaving the school.”

“I didn’t know, ahead of time. That it would cause a dependency. Or.. I suppose it’s better to say I didn’t think that far. That’s my own failing, as with a lot of the issues here. Again, I’m sorry.”

“I don’t forgive you.” He swallowed. “But I need you anyways. And, to be explicit, I’m curious. You clearly have done shit all in the way of testing, so we can work together on that.”

“Mm.”

“If you try to fuck with me, I will notice. I knew last time. Your power doesn’t last very long when the victim knows what’s up. So don’t push your luck, because next time I’ll be telling the Protectorate rather than someone as harmless as Rey.”

“Then” - he paused, considering his words - “you should understand that I will need your definition of ‘fuck with’ very thoroughly detailed.” It was weird, seeing him here with none of the power. We’d been equals in my eyes for so long, only to have it be revealed that he’d been controlling me the entire time, but now  _ I _ was in control. He needed  _ me, _ just as much if not more than I needed him, and I held more cards against him than he against me. Knowing he could  _ feel _ my exhilaration in the face of him losing this game made it so much sweeter.

“Any and all uses of your power on me will be what I explicitly tell you to do. No more, no less.”

“Of course.” A pause. “Is that all?”  _ Should there be more? _

“For now.” I shifted into a more casual position in my seat. “You know, this is going to be much better for us in the long run, I think. Graduating isn’t an issue anymore, either; we can do this for a  _ long _ time.” I stretched out the last couple words to emphasize just how calm I was, though it’s not like it was necessary for him to get the full picture.

“Well.. That was always my plan, anyways, so it works out.”

“Maybe, but I doubt it was to the extent I want to take this. See, I still see you as.. a friend, if that fits?” He didn’t respond. “I’d like to believe, at least, that we’re friends still. You slighted me, and now I hold a lot of power over you, but we’re friends. And friends.. do things for each other. You’ve done a lot for me, right? We both have, we’ve got this whole  _ dynamic. _ So, I guess, we can do more, now that it’s all in the open. We’ll do it my way, of course.”

“Of course.”

“Mm.” He was taking it fairly well for someone who was actively being blackmailed. Maybe he really had always wanted something like this, but it was still suspicious. “First things first, jack me up. I haven’t been able to  _ think _ the past few days.”

“For our arrangement to work, you’ll have to be more specific than that. What  _ exactly _ do you want me to do?” The thought that he might have been stalling crossed my mind, but there didn’t seem to be much he could gain from delaying things.

“Help me focus, and-” I cut myself off. “Actually, better idea. How about you just tell me what you were doing to me regularly and I adjust things from there?”

“Mmm.” He took a moment, either to consider it or once again to slow things down. I was having a hard time believing he really needed to spend any effort remembering the exact cocktail he’d been giving me for years. “I helped you focus, process things faster, pay more attention to detail, and.. well, it’s not as straightforward as you’re imagining. There were evidently some side effects, and I’m not able to do anything about those.”

“What, like hallucinations?” His face contorted in confusion. “No, I mean.. Suppressing them, not causing them. I experienced some when I had my psychotic break, but they weren’t really a thing after that until I spent some time in the hospital.”

“Mm.. It’s possible those would have been lessened by what I’d been doing for you, yes.”

“And what else? You said it was evident, but didn’t realize that one, so what other shit has your power been doing to me?”

“Small things. I see them as small, at least. You need to understand, I don’t have as much of a fine tune on this as I think you’re imagining. I control bundles - all parts of the brain are connected in one way or another, and I can’t just target one specific piece. So I did what I did, and it made you more bored, among other things.”

_ “What _ things, David?” I leaned forward.

“I can’t say if it was my doing or not, but you’ve grown far more  _ aggressive _ since we first met. It’s especially clear now.”  _ Mm.. One of my biggest failings - it could’ve all just been him? All this time, all of this anger and fear and bullshit.. _

“I accept the risks, hit me with it.” Wordlessly, he proceeded, and waves came crashing down on me. How I hadn’t noticed it for what it was earlier must have been willful ignorance, or maybe I was just feeling it so much stronger now that I knew what was going on and had been deprived for so long. After a moment of blocking off as much of the effects as possible, just to make sure he didn’t sneak anything in, I let go.

My mind surged with energy. Potential being met in all the ways it had become accustomed to. Elation - not forced - filled my entire body. Splashing, spinning around, flushing through my system. Evaporating, a rush of euphoria. A return to  _ me.  _ To  _ perfection. _

And then it was just normal. How could it be anything else? If you ride a high long enough, it stops being a high. The momentary pleasure I felt had only been the  _ relief _ from the oppressive state of normality I’d left far behind. There could be no going back from this point - I was just like my mother.

“You know, I’m  _ very _ curious to see what you can do. This isn’t my first time finding all the ins and outs of powers, I’m sort of like a volunteer test subject.”

“You don’t mean..?”

“What?”  _ Wait, shit. _ “No, of course not. You think I’d just out my friends?” Thankfully for me, I was pretty used to lying, and his reaction suggested he’d bought it. “Yeah, no, there’s groups for that kind of thing. Completely anonymous, I’ve got my own little costume and everything.”

“Really?” Of course, lying was a lot easier when there was some level of truth to it.

“Yeah, look up- Or, well, shit, you’d need Tinkor.”  _ We’re getting off topic. _ “Just- don’t worry about it. You’ve got me, and I’m more than willing.”

“Mm.” He studied me, so I studied him. It was hard to stay calm, to keep him from realizing I’d said anything stupid, but.. it was going okay, it seemed. After another moment or so, he sat back and rolled his shoulders. “Well, I’ve had these powers for a long time. I’m not sure how much we’ll be able to find that I haven’t already discerned for myself.”

“You didn’t know I’d be able to break out of it in a few hours when I knew what was going on.”

“A few hours? Really?”

“Actually closer to two, I think. But that’s what I mean, there’s a lot you don’t know.” He considered my words for a moment, then nodded.

“Go ahead then, what do you propose we do?”  _ Okay, are you just like.. completely unphased by the fact that you’re trapped in my iron grip, or what? Like, look, we’re chill to some extent but.. I don’t know, shouldn’t you be worried about this? I have loads of blackmail on you, all you have is angsty.. bullshit. Hmm. _

“Do you think your emotional state impacts it at all? Like if you try to project a neutral emotion and you’re mad, do you think it leans more towards anger?”

“What would you classify as a neutral emotion? Also, it’s not just  _ emotions, _ I’ll remind you.”

“I know that, I know that.”  _ Come on, you know as well as I do that I’m smart as fuck. _ “But, I don’t know, hunger? Or- can you make people like.. walk? Move?”

“Hunger isn’t an emotion.”  _ Fuck, you could’ve fooled me. _ “Also, no, I can’t directly move people.”

“Okay, so either you’re lying or you really haven’t made how your power works all too clear.”

“You haven’t given me much room to talk.”

“No-” I cut myself off, but it was too late. His point had been pretty thoroughly exemplified already. “Fine.” I crossed my arms. “Tell me the specifics. I’ll just listen, no commentary.”

“Mm.” He waited, as if to test me, then moved into a less casual position. It was one he’d done a lot, leaning onto his desk with his mouth covered by his hands. “I can envision these groups - packets, if you will - and project them onto the target. Sometimes targets, plural, but that seems restricted to minor, more temporary changes. It’s how I’ve dealt with the school board, in many situations.” True to my word, I stayed quiet, despite my questions.

“My own emotional state doesn’t seem to be factored in, beyond basic human nature. I’ve never had issue with being a bit too  _ frustrated _ to calm someone down. Believe me when I say, some of your classmates are  _ very  _ frustrating.” A joke nearly slipped out, but I kept my promise.  _ Are you testing me? _

“Oh, and for the record, I  _ can  _ control hunger, to an extent. As a general rule, I am able to interact with passive parts of the human brain. I can’t directly make someone do anything, but I can combine my influence with some verbal persuasion.” I raised my hand, as silly as it felt, so as to not be rude. “Yes?”  _ Wait, I’m being all soft now, is this his doing? _ A quick check of my reasoning leading up to this point was enough to determine that it was in fact my own decision.  _ Stay vigilant. _

“Uh, so it’s kind of like Heartbreaker..?” He took a second to recall one of my many cape rants. It had probably stuck out in his mind when I started talking about someone with such similar powers to his own.

“Ignoring the horrendous man behind the mask - metaphorically - sure. The comparison is worth making, but even without accounting for the people behind the power.”  _ Creepy, but useful.  _ “However, the person behind the power determines a significant amount of what it can do. Quite frankly, I would never have even imagined doing something like Heartbreaker until I heard about him from you. Some could see it as me limiting myself, but I think it’s opened up new pathways to not be as tunnel visioned in that direction.”

“Well, maybe you got tunnel visioned in other ways? You know, just recently the Mixup Marshals got jailed. The ones with the super creative leader - made all of them  _ a lot _ stronger just by expanding the limits of their powers. And, I don’t know, I obviously don’t have a  _ power _ that lets me do that, but that doesn’t mean I’m not pretty good at thinking of ways powers can be utilized. Honestly, I should be hired by the PRT to just sit around and brainstorm about this all the time.”

“Mm, well, you’re not wrong. I’m sure there are secret paths to my power that I’ve yet to consider, and you certainly could be a good person to find them. Especially with my assistance, funnily enough.”

“Yes, yes. Mm..” I let the possibilities pour through my mind. “Do you think you might have  _ some _ level of influence outside of the projection of.. states, I guess? As in, do you think your words after the fact might have more of an impact than normal? Like Trojan, or Mirage?”

“Possibly, but we’d have no way to test that without someone else. I don’t intend to try out your anonymous group, so..”

“Mm, no, that’s fine.” I grinned. “I think I have a better idea.”

* * *

‘Better’ was a word with many meanings, entirely dependent on the context. In any situation, you would almost certainly find a different answer for what is ‘best’, were you to ask a variety of people. Even beyond that, different people could have different responses based on the circumstances surrounding the situation. The trolley problem, for instance, was notorious for being written off as a simple decision. On paper, sure, you would pick the one over the five, but in reality..

Far more interesting was the fact that a person can easily know something to be better for  _ themselves, _ and far less good for others. Some would say that purposefully acting on those imbalances made you  _ bad _ in some way, but they tended to be the kind to judge those they don’t even know for things they can’t hardly be blamed for. They were the kinds to completely miss the big picture.

First off, just because  _ one _ part of a relationship - any give and take between two people - is imbalanced in one direction, that doesn’t mean it negates the dozens of things going the other direction. When those on the seesaw keep putting more weight on your side, it can’t really be seen as equivalent to toss some onto the other side as well.

Secondly, and most importantly, was the context of  _ overall _ difference. If two people create these imbalances between each other, constantly making sure the gain for one is larger than the loss for the other, and  _ both _ members are to be evenly distributing these things.. Well, it quite clearly paints the picture of mutual gain, through a significant amount of smaller imbalances.

When a dynamic between two people is so ridiculously oppressive, it only makes sense to respond in kind. What good does one get in taking the high ground? So long as you evade punishment - social, legal, or otherwise - what is there to be lost from taking back some of what has been stolen?

“Hey Sandra,” I chirped.

“What do  _ you _ want, shitbreath?”

Sometimes, in the most extreme cases, there was a pass to do just about whatever you wanted to those who forced their way above you. And sometimes, very rarely, one was able to completely flip the table.

“Mr. Walker wants to see you.”


	4. Sparks 4.3

“Why the fuck does he want me in one of your loser sessions?” Sandra pestered. “What have you been saying to him?”

“Nothing, nothing.” I didn’t see much reason to try to manage her, or to downplay how calm I felt. Soon enough, things would be going  _ very _ well for me, so I could handle a minute or two of her bratty bullshit.

“Yeah right. If I get suspended I’m kicking your ass, got it?”

“Of course.” We walked into the main office. The secretary gave me a weird look, but I just headed for David’s office. Sandra seemed kind of impressed as we headed in, but maybe I was just projecting my own pride onto her. I’d slowly cultivated a perfect setup for my school life, nearly all elements were working in my favor, and I couldn’t help but think that others might have begun to take notice.

The hall to David’s office felt longer than usual, as if my own desire to revel in each moment of the process had actually extended the path I knew so well. How many times had I walked it? At what point had it gone from a hall to what it was now? Questions for another time, as there were more pressing matters; far more exciting things to consider. We went in.

“Hi, have a seat,” David said. He was keeping his eyes low.  _ Shame? _

“First, let me just say,” Sandra cooed, “that whatever she’s been saying about me is  _ completely _ false.” Her voice was sickeningly sweet, a harsh contrast to how she usually talked to me. She was almost definitely trying to gain favor. More horrifying was the possibility that this was just how she talked most of the time, and that I had merely been an exception. “Or if not false, then at least exaggerated.” She smiled and took my chair. I sat in the other one, willing to make one small sacrifice for the sake of this working out.

“Relax, Sandra, you’re not in any trouble.” He composed himself and put on his professional tier counselor smile. How long had it taken for him to get to the point where he could almost completely control his facial expressions?  _ Oh, shit, I should’ve asked if he could use his power on himself. Something for later, I guess, because my time has come. _

“Yeah,” I chimed in. “I just thought, maybe, that we could become” - I nodded to David, Sandra’s eyes glazing over a moment later - “friends?”

“Fr..” She shook her head and cleared her throat. “Friends? Why would.. why?” As expected, it wasn’t enough to instantly convince her, but only to make her more open to the idea. If the effect had been more extreme, it would’ve been far too obvious to her in retrospect that something was up. Even if she didn’t expect powers, the chance of this sticking probably would’ve dropped to zero.

“Well, I know we have a bit of a history, but I’ve always respected you. I think you’ve felt the same way about me..?” After a second of consideration, she nodded. “We’re cut from the same cloth, you know? We’re both  _ powerful, _ in our own ways. Leaders.”

“I.. guess it could be seen that way? I don’t know.” David hid his mouth with his hands and watched us. Judging us, or maybe just waiting for my next nod.

“I just think we could gain a lot from joining forces. I mean, I don’t really hold any hard feelings for all of the stuff you’ve done over the years.. If you’re down for it, I think bridging our two groups could be a great boon for all of us.”

“A boon? How so..?” She definitely wasn’t on board yet, but it was clear she was headed in that direction.

“Well, think of all the good we could do. Sure, you don’t care too much about the wellbeing of others, but bettering the entire school would mean  _ our _ lives got easier as well. I can’t think of anything that would invoke a healthier environment more than having the biggest bitch and her favorite harassee make up.”

“And why would I want that?”  _ Final nail in the coffin, let’s go. _

“I mean.. wouldn’t it be nice to have somewhere safe? You’ve been taking things out on me for a reason, right..? It’s your home environment, huh?”

“My.. what did he.. tell you..?” She looked at David, and he shook his head in response. More to me, it seemed, than her.

“Nothing, it’s just  _ very _ obvious. I mean, it’s why I’m a bit of a bitch too. The reason we’ve gotten so much power is because we want  _ control, _ right? You want some place where things can be how  _ you _ want them, right? A reprieve from the chaos of the world that’s fucked you over?”

“Mm..” She didn’t say anything more, holding herself in her arms. David was tense, but I didn’t care.

“With my help, you could control far more than some small group of losers. Even with us, you know there’s only so much you can do. We could be the  _ queens _ of this school.” The old Sandra would’ve certainly made a joke about me being the ‘queer of the school’, but the thought didn’t even seem to cross her mind.

“Total domination..”

“Uh huh.” I nodded, and she followed along. “That sounds real nice, right?” I tried to make my words sound as soothing as possible, but my voice was never really fit for that. Regardless, it seemed to be working well enough.

“I thought,” David said, stressing and stretching out his words, “that maybe things could go a different direction.” I turned to look at him. “For the  _ two _ of you. That your  _ friendship  _ could serve to help cope with your home lives? That you wouldn’t  _ need _ to have  _ ‘total domination.’” _ He was clearly talking more to me than her, but I couldn’t let his words ruin what I had going.

“Maybe, maybe..” When I turned back to Sandra, I found that she was focused on him, so I gently turned her head with my hand and looked her in the eyes. “But this sounds a lot more fun. And besides, we deserve it, don’t we?” She slowly bobbed her head up and down in agreement. 

_ “Quinn.” _ I didn’t acknowledge him.  _ Nothing more than a nuisance, equivalent to hearing voices. Maintain eye contact, do not let up. _

“We  _ deserve _ this. We have earned this, and you and I.. Hmm, actually..” I feigned an epiphany as well as I could. “I think I’ve earned it a little more than you have, wouldn’t you say so? Especially with how you’ve treated me.” She nodded solemnly. “In fact, I think I might not even want you to be a part of this. I’m not sure if you  _ really _ deserve to stand next to me, you filthy dog.”

“Quinn!” I held my hand up to block him out. There was nothing he could do without breaking our arrangement or revealing his powers to the girl with the most influence in the school. A girl who’d just experienced firsthand why David  _ ‘should’ _ be in jail. 

“How about this?”  _ We’re so close, I can see it in your fucking eyes. _ “I’ll let you be my  _ assistant  _ if you apologize. Here and now, for everything. You owe me that, don’t you?”

“Of course, I..” She shook her head, the starts of tears reaching her eyes. “I’m so sorry, for all of it, I was so horrible to you, and- and for things that weren’t your fault at all, and stupid things and.. I’m sorry Quinn.” By the time she’d finished she looked close to bawling, so I swooped in with a hug.

“Hey, it’s okay. Thank you, it means a lot.” Even though I’d manufactured the whole thing, hearing her apology  _ did _ make me feel a bit better. I almost felt bad for doing this, but there was no time for regret. There could be no coming back from this - I’d made my decision. Pulling away, I patted her on the shoulder a couple times and smiled as warmly as I could feign. “How about you go back to class and we can hang out at lunch, okay?”

“Okay..” She scampered off to leave the room, stopping at the door. “Thanks, Quinn.”

“Any time.” I smiled, this time genuinely. She smiled back and gave me a small wave before walking away, closing the door behind her. David cleared his throat, and I decided to finally pay him some mind. Turning around in the chair, I was met with his disapproving glare. “Sup, Davey?”

“That was _ not okay, _ Quinn.” I couldn’t help but groan at his harsh, criticizing tone.

“She fucking deserved it,” I spat. “And beyond that, I made her  _ better. _ You think a single person in the entire world is going to mourn the loss of mega-bitch Sandra? A few weeks hanging out, a couple more sessions, we could make her a saint.”

“And your queen talk? Domination?”

“It was just to pull her in, obviously; I’m not going to ‘take over the school’ or something stupid like that.”

“Won’t you? You didn’t seem to have any issues exerting control over one student, what’s to stop you from doing the same to the rest?”

“Because- Ugh! You never-” I took a quick breath, lowering my voice. “You don’t  _ listen _ to me-”

“Do you even realize how much this will draw attention? You took  _ several  _ steps over the acceptable line, and now people are going to ask questions. You  _ cannot _ make such major changes without people noticing. You’re better than this, you need to  _ plan ahead.  _ When someone comes asking, when rumors spread, what are you going to do? Make  _ them _ ‘better’ too?”

“No! Obviously not, I just-”

“You need to take some time to consider your next moves  _ very _ carefully. I chose you because I knew you had potential to do incredible good in the world, but you lack  _ structure. _ It has been your biggest flaw in the entire time I’ve known you, and it’s only getting worse. It’s clear that you aren’t willing to follow someone else’s law, so  _ set some for yourself. _ Lines you will not pass, rules you will not break. This will not last forever, so don’t waste what you have on making your own life worse further down the line just to get some temporary gain.”

Though some of his ideas made sense, too many of them were completely missing the point for me to find responding worth it. I stood up, threw a harsh look at him, and left.  _ I’ll make some fucking laws, alright. Just you wait. _

* * *

I was all ready to burst out of fourth period and into the most exciting lunch of my life, but Mrs. Evans had other plans for me.

“Mm, Ms. Kelly?” She was lucky I hadn’t bolted out of the room, because I’d come close to it.  _ I still could, just run away and deal with her later. Ugh, hopefully this’ll be quick. _

“What?” The last few remaining students cleared out of the room, leaving just the two of us.

“I just wanted to say that I’m sorry about your..” She struggled to find the words, wasting my time. “Well, I’m just glad you’re okay. If you ever want to talk-?”

“No thanks.” I forced a smile to show off some semblance of politeness before heading to my locker. Riley must have already passed through in the short time I was held up, so I decided to just go straight to the cafeteria once I’d put my stuff away. As expected, Vincent and Riley were both already at our usual table. I got some mush and a couple mini-bread rolls before going over to join them.

“Hey, didn’t see you at your locker so I just went on ahead, sorry,” Riley said after swallowing a large bite. “You okay?”

“Yeah, no worries, just got held up by Mrs. Evans.” I made a thumbs down and raspberried.

“Oh, what’d she want?”

“Stupid stuff, it’s not a big deal.” I pushed some of the slimy stuff on my tray as I took a bite out of some of the bread.

“Oh, lame.”

“Super.” At that, we sat in silence for a bit and focused on eating. There was no chance in hell I was going to actually eat anything but the bread, but people gave me weird looks if I didn’t put some arbitrary minimum onto my tray.

“Uh-” Riley tensed, pulling back a bit. Moments later, Sandra sat down next to me, much to everyone else’s confusion.

“Hey, Sandy.”

“Mm,” she grunted.

“What the fuck?” All of the gears in Marissa’s brain were working in overdrive to try to process this newest event. I almost felt bad for the girl. Vincent shared the sentiment a bit more elegantly by nudging my arm and raising an eyebrow when I looked over at him.

“Oh, uh” - I turned to address the two standing girls - “you can sit here too, I guess, and I can explain.”

“We’re not-”

“Sit.” As much as I’d done to her, Sandra still was very much so a commanding type. They did as she said, with little hesitation, but made sure to be as far from the rest of us as possible.  _ See, David? Go big, then when things fade it’s just the small changes that last. Not sure I could take the bitch out of her if I tried - I’m just being efficient. _

“Sandra and I had a little _discussion_ - super chill - realized we didn’t need to be enemies. In fact, we both agree that there’s a lot we can gain from being _friends._ Isn’t that right, Sandy?”

“Mhm. I thought we could give it a shot, at least.”

“Why- Mm.” Riley held herself back, all of that confidence she’d built up over the past few weeks dissipating in an instant. She went from asking Sandra whatever question she was preparing to asking me something instead. “Why?”

“Why?” I parroted.  _ Oh, Riley, no.. It’s good, I promise. _ I tried to convey that feeling in my look, but she didn’t seem to get it. “I just thought- well,  _ David _ and I thought that this would be a good idea.” The colour drained from her face at his name.

“D-?”

“Mhm,” I cut her off. “With how much history we have, a mediator was absolutely necessary. But it worked out well, right? Worst case scenario” - I gestured to Sandra - “she goes off to harass someone else. Best case, we make a new friend. Or three, assuming the other two are going to stick around.” Riley didn’t seem even remotely satisfied, but she looked a bit less like she was on the verge of throwing up.

“What’s wrong with him?” Beth asked.

“Nothing’s  _ wrong _ with him,” Sandra insisted, “don’t be a bitch. Like you two are any less freaked about this. Change is scary, at least he’s doing something to deal with it. Honestly, I can respect that, especially after today.” She held her hand up to high-five. “Good on you.”

Riley stared at the hand like a deer in headlights. I recognized the look as showing off the feeling from whenever Dad waved or shouted. It took her a moment to offer a weak response, lightly tapping her palm against Sandra’s.

“Yeah, see?” she continued. “You two need to move on, life’s too fast to hold onto the petty stuff.”  _ Damn, I really did a number on her, huh? Or I guess David’s effects are probably still lingering.  _ Open-mindedness could be pretty dangerous if left unattended to, but there wasn’t much that could make her a  _ worse _ person, so I put it out of mind.

“Well-” Beth looked between the two of them, and then at me, before crossing her arms in frustration. “Hmmph.”

“Yeah, so there we go, it’s great. Nobody even needs to really interact much, we’re just going to sit here like this and see how it works out, okay?” Everyone agreed, begrudgingly as it was, except for Riley. I could only hope I hadn’t completely ruined her entire day.  _ This will all be worth it, I promise. _

* * *

We’d only just left the school when Riley pulled me away from Vincent. I was going to tell him to wait for us, but Riley insisted that he go on ahead; that this would take a while. She took me a few blocks out of our usual route, and once we were far enough away from anyone to hear, she pinned me between her and a fence.

“Did he get into your head?”

“What? No, I-”

“Then what the fuck is wrong with you?” she asked. I scowled. “You said you weren’t going to talk to him anymore. You- I said I wouldn’t tell anyone  _ because _ you said you wouldn’t do this. Did you think I wouldn’t know, with- with the  _ Sandra _ thing? What the fuck did he do to her?”

“Nothing, I-”

“Bullshit!” She pulled away, turned around, and gripped her hands into tight fists that made her knuckles red. “Fuck, Quinn!”

I didn’t say anything, and she didn’t either. Several tense breaths passed between the two of us before she dared look at me again. Tears had started forming at the corners of her eyes.

“Why do you always do this to me?” I stared at her and tried my hardest to empathize. I cared, of  _ course _ I cared, but I couldn’t  _ understand.  _ It was  _ my _ problem, none of this should even have been affecting her beyond Sandra hanging around. Even  _ that _ was better for her in the long run.

“Why are  _ you _ so short-sighted?” I shouted. She looked at me like I’d just shot her puppy. “You don’t.. get it. I’m doing this for  _ us, _ it’s..” She didn’t seem even remotely convinced. “Look, I’ve got David cornered. He can’t do  _ anything _ to me or I fuck over his entire life. I’m being careful, I always am, okay?”

“But you’re  _ not. _ He broke you once, if he really wanted he could- he could fucking enslave you!” Her voice was shaking, at the end, more than her body was. “You can’t fuck around with  _ Masters. _ Radar was stupid but this, I’m-  _ Fuck!” _

“Don’t you understand that I thought all this through? I know what I’m doing, I have contingencies, I’m  _ above _ him. You treat me like I’m just some stupid fucking civilian. Aren’t you happy to have Sandra gone? Especially after what she did to you; you fucking  _ triggered _ because of  _ her _ organized assault, you’re really going to tell me you aren’t at all happy I took her out of the picture? And in a way that helps  _ everyone, _ too, even her!”

“You brainwashed her, Quinn! You  _ just _ got out of the hospital from this exact thing, and now you’re..  _ you’re using it on other people? _ Even someone as awful as her, aren’t you- don’t you  _ care?” _

“I’m..” I didn’t want to admit to her that the answer to that question was a hard ‘no’, so I only had one other option. “I’m going to hang out with Barb, I’ll see you back home later.” Normally she was good at handling how I went about serious conversations, but this time seemed to whiplash her hard.

“Fine,” she eventually spat out. With nothing else to say to one another, we went our separate ways.

* * *

Neither of us wanted to go back to my dad’s house, and I wasn’t in the mood to meet my girlfriend’s parents. I hadn’t even thought about it as her meeting  _ my _ dad, rather than just.. some monster I lived with sometimes. It would’ve seemed more like that if she’d met Mr. Green, but I couldn’t see that going well any time soon.

Regardless of all that, we didn’t have anywhere private to go, so we’d settled on going for a walk in the park. We wouldn’t be able to talk about cape shit without being hyper-vigilant about people nearby. Thankfully, at least, there weren’t many people around due to the weather, and.. maybe it wouldn’t be the worst to just chat about normal things for once. Any talk about that would’ve probably lead to the David situation, and I wasn’t really ready to deal with that conversation.

“So,” I said, breaking through the relative silence we’d found ourselves in.

“So?”

“Uh, yeah. I don’t know, I didn’t have anything to say, I guess.” Another short pause followed. “Just don’t want silence right now, don’t want to think about some things that I can’t get off my mind.”

“Gotcha.” She went ahead a few steps, stopped us from moving ahead any more, and around to look at me. “Wanna make out?”

“Ehhh.. I don’t know, I considered it, when we were planning all of this, but.. eh.”

“Yeah, fair.” She put her hands in her pockets. “Philosophy?”

“Ew” - I thought of my  _ phase _ a few years back - “No fucking thank you.” She shrugged.

“Then I got nothing. I’m a ‘bounce off’ kinda girl, when it comes to convos.”

“Yeah, I.. normally am not. Talking about random shit is basically a superpower of mine, at this point.” I laughed, somewhat genuinely and somewhat to mask the pain. Less pain than there used to be, at least. “What’s going on in Ward..ville..?”  _ Oh god, don’t try to be clever right now. _

“Mmm..” We started walking again. “Not much.”

“Well, you’ve got that thing going on, right? The big fight.”

“Yeah, I’m not a part of that. Red Iron is for big girls only.”

“I know, but- Wait, do you not count as a ‘big girl’?”

“Shit.” She stopped walking and sighed. “I was seeing how long I could go before you realized I’m younger than you.”

“Oh shit?” As surprising as it was, there at least wasn’t any danger of her being  _ too _ young for me. They’d made a big deal about Mortar being the youngest Remure Ward in history when she joined, and she was fourteen. Also - to be blunt with myself - I doubted she could be so..  _ developed,  _ while being much younger than me.

“Yeah, I turn sixteen this February.”

“So a little over a year between us, with you on the lower end.” She nodded. “Huh, alright.”  _ A little weird, but I’ll deal. _ “Anyways, yeah, I know it’s not a fight you’re a part of, but that’s still.. exciting, maybe?”

“Not really. Here, let’s sit.” She gestured to a nearby bench and sat down, legs crossed. I followed along and took a seat right next to her.  _ Should I hold your hand? _ “Yeah, I don’t know, it’s not like this is the first time they’ve done a fight that I can’t be a part of. Nothing to get excited about, really.” She grabbed my hand, deciding for me. The rush of gay excitement died down pretty quickly at a realization.

“Shit, but Riley’s part of it? I know she’s just in and out, but-”

“Chill, she’ll be fine. She’s only in this because her power’s stupid useful for the situation. The Protectorate doesn’t want to risk lawsuits when they don’t have to, so they only let the younger Wards help out in the serious fights if they  _ really _ need to. Pretty sure she’s just there to warp some people onto a roof and then she’s supposed to get as far away from there as possible.”

“Mm.. I don’t know, she-” My worrying was cut short by a kiss. She hovered her face a few inches in front of me after the fact, keeping her voice low.

“It’ll go great, okay? Let’s talk about something else.” After a second to process what had happened, I nodded a bit too enthusiastically for the situation. “Good girl.” She pulled back and swapped the positioning of her legs. “You’re real cute, you know that?”

“Am I?” This was coming from the most gorgeous girl I’d ever met - a fact that might have been impacted by her being one of the first I ever actually considered dating. Even considering that, there was no denying that she was really,  _ really _ pretty. On top of that, she made most of her clothes and did a fantastic job. And then you had me - fat, mediocre looking, and constantly wearing the same few outfits. “I mean, you’re kind of a goddess in comparison.”

“Eh, I look good in a manufactured way. Some people are really stupid about that - think it doesn’t have any value - but there’s still something undeniably nice about a natural cuteness.”

“I-”

“Don’t even try to deny it, you’re- look, you’re fucking blushing, that’s adorable.”  _ I am? _ I reached up to feel my warm cheeks, which made her smile. “See? Fuck, that’s like the cutest reaction. You’ve got it  _ bad, _ girl.”

“But I look so.. eh..”

“It’s not even about looks, but I think you look nice anyways. It’s just like.. how you are, the way you act and do shit. You get so angry about things, and you’re so passionate, and it’s just cute. You’re cute.”

“Mm..”  _ You don’t know who I am behind the mask, though. At three in the morning, or- _ “I’m.. not a good person.”

“Oh?” She didn’t believe me.

“Yeah, you’re.. ugh, I just..” I swayed around in a frustrated huff before leaning on her, my head on her shoulder. “I don’t think you’d like me if you actually knew who I am. I make this whole- it’s not even fake, I don’t know how to explain it.

“I have this  _ ‘me’ _ that I am when I first meet people, and slowly over time it just kind of breaks down. Most people don’t stick around after a bit. I really fuck myself over because I like.. I display all this like..  _ empathy _ and.. I don’t know, normal human shit? But I don’t know how to do that long term, I.. I  _ try _ for a while, and then I just slowly stop over time. It’s like- like my love, I guess, is broken.

“I don’t know, I guess I’m just scared about that happening with you. For you to realize I’m kind of hollow inside; that there’s not really anything to me in terms of.. ugh, love? I don’t know if I’m explaining this well at all, I-”

“Hey,” she interrupted, “you’re doing fine.” She kissed my head, turning me into mush. When I reformed, I was laying my head on her lap. “Riley’s still around, right? She’s  _ really _ not a people person, I’m sure you’ve noticed, so if she’s here then you must be doing something right.”

“Mm.” Rather than continue to stare at her face like a gay idiot, I closed my eyes.

“You’re not normal, but you’re not broken. You’ve got a creepy abusive fuck for a dad, and who knows what else, and that changes a person. It’s shitty to hold yourself to normal person standards, you’re pretty clearly exceptional in some ways and have been held back in others. Honestly, I’m pretty sure that  _ is _ normal, and we all just pretend it isn’t; that there’s some ideal standard for a human that ticks every box, and we act like that’s possible at all.

“You’re not a box ticker, but you’ve got a lot of unconventional good going on. When it comes down to it, your ‘love’ is going to be different from other people’s, but you’re going to find someone on the same wavelength as you. Like me - I think we fit pretty well together.”

“Uh huh.”  _ But you don’t know why Riley’s mad at me. You’re a hero and I’m.. well, I’m certainly not following the rules, at least. _ “I.. mm..” I shifted my head closer to her toned stomach.  _ Fuck, I need to work out more. Ugh, and I have the stupid doctor fucker soon.. I don’t.. ugh.. _ “I don’t want to talk with you about this but I really should.”

“The Riley stuff?”

“Yeah.” For a moment I thought that maybe if I just blocked out the rest of the world, if it was just Barb and I sitting in the void, that it would be okay to bring up. No matter how hard I squeezed my eyes shut, though, I couldn’t ignore the distant sound of some kids playing.  _ Am I a monster? Am I actually in the wrong here? I’ve been trying to tell myself that I’m not doing something awful, that I’m not a terrible person, but.. What if that’s all that there is in store for me? What if that’s what I’m meant to be? _

_ If she knew, she’d know I was broken. She’d know I was right, and she’d hate me. She’s never played by the rules, either, but I’m on another level. I’m the worst. I’m actually the fucking worst. Riley’s going to leave me, Barb’s going to hate me, Vincent’s gone and it’s all.. it’s all going to fall down around me, and there’s nothing I can do. _

_ I was so sure I was being careful. Not even a quarter of a day ago I was certain that I wouldn’t regret this, and I- I don’t even know if I do? Do I? I don’t even know if I know what regret feels like, really. I know guilt, I think, and I know mistakes, but I don’t know if I regret ever. _

_ Why couldn’t I have been put together right? It goes beyond being broken, I think, I’m sure that there’s a fault at my core. Probably something Mom did, some drug that completely fucked me over for life. Was she using back then? Probably. Why don’t I know that? Why don’t I ever fucking ask anyone about anything? Why can’t I ever think, just for a second, about someone other than me? Selfish fucking freak. _

“I hate myself and you should hate me too.” Before she could respond, I continued. “And that’s not an ‘I think you should’, it’s a ‘you should’. I’m a bad person, and I’m- I’m pretty sure I’m just actually evil? And I do all this awful shit and I don’t feel bad about it but I do feel bad that I don’t feel bad about it, and I feel bad that people are upset at me for it, but I don’t feel bad about it itself usually, and I’m- I’m just laying my stupid fucking head on your lap here going off about how you should be tossing me, and that’s kind of fucked up, huh?

“I’m just like ranting at you and I’m not even willing to look you in the fucking face, I’m- even now, when I’m saying this, like I’m self aware but I’m just such a stubborn fucking bitch about it that I’m just doing nothing, nothing at all, just rambling into some girl who’s  _ way _ better than me, and it’s fucking stupid! And I’m afraid- hah, I’m afraid that if I get up? If I get up, get off of you and actually let you move? That you’ll run. And you should, and I know you should, but I don’t want you to because I need-

“Do I even need  _ you _ or do I just need what you give me? Your- your  _ status,  _ or what you represent, or- I don’t know! You’re like this fucking icon to me, this  _ thing _ that I like, but do I like you? You sure as fuck don’t like me, you don’t know who I am, so do I even like you at all? I sit and I- I want to value honesty and I want to not keep secrets and hide but I don’t know how not to, it just all- it’s so fucking  _ fake, _ all of it, all of me, and I.. and..” Falling in line with the rest of my outbursts, I lost all steam very rapidly out of seemingly nowhere.  _ No wonder I never noticed what David was doing. _

“Quinn.” She was stroking my hair - I hadn’t realized in the heat of the moment.

“Yeah?” My voice shook more than I’d expected, taking me even more off guard. I’d just made myself incredibly vulnerable, and that was not a position I dealt with particularly well.

“You should tell me about your thing. Promise the worst that’ll happen is like, I don’t know, I’ll..” She took a second. “If you’re like a serial killer I’m definitely dumping you, but otherwise the worst you can expect is needing a break. I’m pretty chill with most shit, even if it takes a bit to get used to. Okay? Not going anywhere. And it seems like you need to get it off your mind.”

“Mm..” I fluttered my eyes open and looked at her soft face for inspiration. “Okay. I’ll do it.” The corner of her mouth went up, a very slight smile to make me feel a little better. “Promise you won’t hate me?”

“Mhm.”

“Okay. Okay..”  _ Deep breath, in and out. _ “So.. I kind of made a new friend?” I took long enough to continue that she must have thought that’s all I had to say.

“Wow, you’re right, I hate you.” The smile had now turned to another reason why I didn’t want to continue.  _ ‘Yeah, I don’t know, I just thought you’d be upset. Whoops, silly me.’  _ It would’ve been so easy to lie to her. To deceive her about all of this and not have to risk anything.  _ She promised. It’ll be okay. _

“It’s someone who’s been really awful to Riley and I for a long time. Hardcore bullying, she actually caused her trigger, right? And I thought that being able to get her off our backs would’ve made Riley happy, but she’s not seeing the long term of it. She’s just panicked about the right now. And I get that, I guess, but I want her to think about what this means for us in the long run. In large part, this is for her. I didn’t really mind her much - she kind of gave me an excuse to explode at people sometimes. I don’t know.”

“I mean, I don’t give a shit about some stupid bully? Why would I care about that?”

“Well.. you know when I said I  _ made _ a friend? Well, uh..”  _ Here we go, leap of faith. _ “I went to the hospital because a Master at school - won’t say who - kind of.. fucked me up? A lot. Gave me a super bad breakdown. But, so, I’ve known him for a really long time, you know? So I uh.. I kind of blackmailed him into doing what I wanted, and first off that was just him giving me a boost of his- he has like this focus thing he can do? Kind of like a drug. Uh, anyways, so I used him to get the bully to stop being so awful to us, and it lead to us being friends? Sort of. But, uh, yeah.”

_ Maybe downplaying it isn’t the best idea long term, but whatever. Ease her into it - strategy or whatever.  _ She took a long few moments to process what I’d said. Just when I thought I might be in the clear, something clicked for her.

“Mmmmmm, okay, up up up, off me.” She moved to get me off of her lap, pushing me to go faster than I already was. “Okay!” She stood up, looked down at me, and exhaled harshly. “You’re fucking crazy, cool! I was waiting for the story to end because, you know, I wanted to make sure it didn’t go how it did before I did something, but uh- Wow! Yep, you’re actually fucking insane.”

“Barb, I-” My breath caught in my throat a moment before I was cut off.

“So I know what I said, but that was when I thought there wasn’t any chance of powers being involved! Since, you know, you don’t have them and should be keeping your head out of this shit? But wow, no, you’re shoving your head right up into the ass of the cape world. Uhhhh, so, I’m going to go and you can fuck off? Sound good?”

“Barb!” I stood up to try to level the playing field somewhat. “Please, can we talk about this?”

“No, um.. Hmm. Yeah, no. I- Yeah, I almost feel bad about this, but don’t talk to me at all until you cut that fucker off. Actually, better yet, report him to the fucking PRT or the police or whatever the fuck. After what he did to you, hah, I.. I don’t care if you’re addicted to his shit or whatever, he’s a fucking monster and he’s probably fucking you in ways you don’t even know.” She laughed exasperatedly, starting to pace in the same small area.

“That’s the only reason I’m even considering giving you another chance, okay? Because I’m hoping this shit is from him, or at the very least that it’ll go the fuck away when you realize he needs to be in jail. Just- I’m blocking your number. Riley can hit me up when you’ve stopped with your shit, or- fuck, just, I can’t. Bye, hope it’s not forever but if so then good luck in hell.” She started walking off, not even wanting to give me a chance to say anything.

“Stop!” She didn’t. “Barb, stop!” The only two people even remotely nearby, a mom and her child, were leaving the scene. The kid was curious, but parents tend to know when a situation’s about to get bad.  _ So get bad.  _ I sprinted at her, as fast as I could, and yelled. She turned to look at me and I stopped a fraction of a second before we would have collided, ending a foot or so away from her. We stared at each other for a moment, my breathing far heavier than hers.

“What, you going to punch me?”  _ Am I? _ For all the passion I’d felt, my enthusiasm in chasing her down, I didn’t know what to do with her right in front of my face. What was my plan? Why was I always so sure of things I hadn’t actually thought out at all? I had to do something. I couldn’t lose her, but I couldn’t give up what I had, I needed-

“I’m going to make him pay for what he’s done, but I need your help.”  _ Maybe, just maybe, this can work. _ She took a long, deep breath.

“One chance. One chance to propose an idea I like, then I’m out. Okay?” I nodded. “Okay, good. Then go.” How had it gotten to this so quickly? Desperately clinging to maintain a relationship that had been at its peak minutes prior.  _ Do not fuck this up. _

“Okay. I don’t want to just call the cops or whatever, because I think he could get away. He’s- I don’t know, I won’t go into it, but I’m pretty sure he’d get away. I don’t want him to have to go full villain mode, you know? I mean, he deserves jail instead, is what I’m saying.”

“Mm.” She crossed her arms over her chest.  _ Hotter or colder, what can that tell me? _

“Uh, hah, but um.. So, I think, based on what I know of his power, that you could mess him up. Riley- we’d need her too, and..”

“Why not just have Riley shift some containment foam-wielding PRT guy over to deal with him? Sounds like you just  _ want _ me, no matter how much it complicates things.”

“Ah, well..”  _ No lying. There has to be some reason. _ “You, uh..” I took a big, shaking breath. “Fuck, you’re right, I’ll try that, but.. can we still talk, then? Now that you know I’m going to do this? And I- I can send Sandra off and have her just.. I’m sure in time she’ll revert to how she was, and.. Okay?” She looked me over, stopping at my eyes, and sighed, letting her arms down.

“You’re too cute for your own good. Texts are open but don’t assume a response. No meetups until it’s done, alright? Not risking.. any of that.”

“Okay.”  _ Thank fuck. _ Relief came to my chest, letting out tension I’d been choking on for minutes. “Okay. Thank you, I-”

“That includes now. I’ll see you later, sinner. Go be a hero.” And with that, she left, casually walking away like nothing had happened. Stranded in the park, I didn’t have anything to do other than go home and apologize to Riley. That, and carefully consider my next moves.  _ Actually, _ this time. Especially what would come after the fact. I’d need a new fix, after all.


	5. Sparks 4.4 R

“I’m..” She paused. “I’m going to hang out with Barb, I’ll see you back home later.”  _ Seriously? Fucking seriously? Fuck off, fuck- fuck you, you can’t just- just- _

“Fine.” I stomped off, not willing to deal with her shit.  _ Selfish piece of shit,  _ always _ doing this kinda shit to me and acting like I’m a fucking idiot for not ‘getting it’. I’m done. I’m fucking done! I can’t do this shit anymore, especially not when- when she’s on  _ rooftops _ and fucking around with Master shit. Fucking  _ Masters! _ My biggest fucking fear and she just- she thinks I’ll just be fine about it-  _ happy _ with her! Fuck! _

_ How am I supposed to deal with this shit? With- with this fucking bullshit, all of this selfish.. stupid fucking.. ugh. Just.. I’m so tired, I’m so..  _ angry _ all the time, and I’m mad at her and she.. deserves it? Does she deserve it? How am I supposed to even judge that? It’s just her and I, has been for so long, I don’t even have a  _ David _ to bounce things off of. I’m so alone in my head and I.. I like that? I think I like that? But how would I even know? I don’t know anything else, it’s always been like this. Always. _

_ Does this need to change? This- I mean, this is like.. there’s something wrong here, right? I feel like all of this anger, all of this..  _ this _ shit is.. it’s probably because of everyone else, right? Because I’ve started being.. sorta friendly with others. Rue and Vincent and.. I don’t know, Ashley? More than Partition or Marionettist or Partition or.. ugh, Jaunt. New friendships have given like.. different perspectives, I guess. Not as much as if I really talked about things much, but somewhat. Enough to make an impact. _

_ So what the fuck do I do about that? Better yet, what am I supposed to do now? And.. where am I now?  _ I paused my inner rant and looked around. I’d wandered off to some side of town I was less familiar with, and needed to figure out where exactly I was so I could get back home and think about things. With a quick scan, I was able to tell that I was  _ somewhat _ near where the Marshal’s fight had taken place. My sense of direction and navigation stuff wasn’t fantastic, but I was pretty sure that the Red Iron base was relatively close.

_ Probably a terrible idea to even go near them. Won’t be an issue avoiding them, though, right? I mean, the turrets.. I mean, there’s got to be some reason people aren’t constantly getting shot up by them. Alarms to warn people? Maybe just some big signs? It’s kinda fucked that I’ve never actually seen the place since they moved in, for how prominent it’s gotten. An impenetrable fortress, at least for our particular band of heroes. Until me, that is. _ I started heading in the direction that probably led to my house.

_ Me, a hero. What the fuck? Like.. How am I supposed to feel about that? Is teleporting some people onto a roof particularly heroic? Is.. letting your best friend  _ not _ call the cops over their horrific monster of a counselor heroic? Am I supposed to be a hero, seriously? I’ve stopped one guy from killing himself, got destroyed by some of the weakest villains I’ve heard of, and am about to spend a few minutes hanging out on top of a building that the actually important people are fighting in. _

_ Am I really a hero, in the face of all of this? What separates me from.. I don’t know, just some random guy? I feel like most people would be capable of what I’ve done, with my powers. I’m sort of just.. I mean, it’s like my entire  _ thing _ is just there to help me set up for people who actually matter. The real heroes. Supporting that is great, but.. _

_ Ugh, should I even be thinking about this shit right now? I’ve got Quinn things to worry about, and.. I’m just tired. Tired enough that I’m talking to myself again. At least this time I’m walking around rather than sitting in the blue for who knows how long. _

_ And.. I really should address the issues I’m having with time. Is it like Radar? Is there some side effect to this that I won’t notice until it’s too late? Temporal.. Stasis.. Disease..? Or something? I want to say I’m pretty sure this is just a natural reaction to having entire extra  _ hours _ added to each day, but who knows? There’s so much we don’t know about any of this, and I.. I mean, I didn’t care before? But that was before. And now’s now. And I have to care, because.. this is my life. _

_ Jesus Christ, this is my life. I’m a fucking superhero in training with the world’s shittiest support power, and my best friend’s going to be like my arch nemesis. The Joker to my Batman or something. Or more like the.. Fuck, what was that one dog show? With.. Krypto or something? Whatever, the Joker dog to my Batdog. Something stupid like that. _

_ Quinn’s really going some awful places, huh? Like.. no bullshit, no fun haha silly metaphors or anything, just.. fuck. I guess I always knew there was this potential? She doesn’t really.. get things. Morals and.. I don’t know. But she’s always played along well enough, and.. I can’t help but feel like she’s trying to mirror me since she can’t be by my side. How would things be different if she’d gotten powers instead of me? Any powers, but preferably not mine. I don’t think she could handle being forced into a support role. _

_ Whatever, I need to help her. When she gets back I’ll just.. we’ll talk things over, and it will be fine. She’s a stubborn bitch at times, but she listens to me when I’m genuinely concerned. Eventually, at least. There’s no way she’s actually going to be some fucking supervillain, even if David’s been poisoning her mind. _

_ What if when we get rid of him she.. what if there’s been some long term changes that fade away? I mean, Sandra like.. we have to fix her, but what if fixing her is just.. what if it reverts on its own after a while? Given how on and off she was about bullying us for ages, that’s probably the case. So with David gone.. who will Quinn become? Who is she without his influence? Will we even still be friends, with how much I’ve changed since we came to this school? _

_ I don’t know. Where am I now?  _ After a short survey of the area, I noticed something I recognized. A weird house, painted gross shades of green and yellow, that I knew to be a few blocks from my house.  _ Okay, just..  _ I decided against ranting to myself again and risk phasing out of existence.  _ Wish I could just shift. _ After a very,  _ very _ focused walk, I ended up at my front door.  _ Put in the key, unlock and- Oh. _

“Hey sweetie.” Mom, on the couch.

“I..”

“Your father and I were just-”

“I can’t.” I went back outside and locked the door behind me, shifting away the instant I knew I was safe to.  _ Not your son. Not today. _

* * *

Tensions had been high and constant between Quinn and I since the day before. We’d had some little talk about plans for the near future, but it didn’t matter much. She wasn’t going to get a happy and compliant Riley any time soon - I had too much respect for myself.  _ Is it respect? It’s something. _

Whatever it was had no bearing on the fact that things were shit at the moment. In general, sure, but especially where I was right then. I wasn’t going to back down on letting her doctor meetup bullshit happen here, because I  _ wasn’t _ a promise-breaking asshole, but damn if it didn’t suck being stuck in my room while this all happened.  _ Not really stuck, I guess, I have a window. _

_ But where the fuck would I go? _

* * *

After an entire day of doing nothing but slog through school and introspect about the awful situation I’d been put into, I thought I would’ve been able to focus on the task at hand. My focus was needed now more than ever, and I  _ needed _ the break from my own thoughts, but it wasn’t coming.  _ Then again, I’m not going to be a huge part of this fight, so maybe I can tune out some of Radar’s lecture and.. torture myself some more; cover the same few topics over and over again and get nowhere. _

_ So after this whole thing I need to try to decompress and then.. guh, this whole  _ thing _ that Quinn has planned. Glad she’s doing it, but  _ really _ not happy with how long it took her, or that.. fuck, what are we even going to do about Sandra? Am I seriously just- this is just like every other time: she does some stupid bullshit that fucks me over and then feels bad and apologizes and thinks that makes up for it, when it usually never does because there’s  _ consequences _ that she just..  _ does not _ get, and.. _

_ Focus on Sandra. Can’t get worked up over Quinn when I’ve got a fight ahead of me, so just.. ignore that part. Focus on the most pressing matter, figure out what the fuck to do about Sandra. Sandra, fucking Sandra! Of all the people, I’m sitting here trying to help  _ Sandra. _ She’s hurt me far more than she ever did Quinn, and I wouldn’t wish this on her. I don’t know how the fuck- Stop! Stop stop stop. Focus. _

_ Sandra is a brainwashed mess right now. It’s been a couple days since the stupid bullshit happened, and we haven’t done anything about it. Probably too late, right? We can’t do anything, like.. I mean, what was I supposed to do? Should I have done something sooner? What’s the point in this whole jailing David plan if.. I mean, how the fuck can she not care about what happened to her until her fucking  _ girlfriend _ says it’s fucked up- God damn it! _

_ Obviously I don’t want her going back to how she used to be, but we can’t just leave her like this. Sitting with us is.. weird, and.. And it’s bad for her! It’s bad. Being fucking controlled like this is bad. But.. what do we even do? This.. I mean, she seems happier now, but like.. It’s fake. She- she shouldn’t get to just go through fucking character development for free, to just get all her problems washed the fuck away with no struggle or effort, to have all of her bullshit just be  _ forgiven?  _ Fuck her, fuck this, fuck all of this, just- Breathe. Breathe, breathe, breathe. Breathe breathe breathe breathe breathe breathe breathe breathe. _

_ Okay, this topic is clearly not working whatsoever, so what else is there? I could focus on the information actually being told to me, but once again I’m not going to be an actual part of the fight for more than a few minutes at most, so like.. whatever. I can’t do the- not even going to say their names. Can’t do that. Fuck, uh.. Friends? Or.. Or.. Fine, I’ll just.. Why do we even need to go over all of this again? We did this like.. a few days ago. _ Regardless of how little sense the situation made, I sat up in my seat and got ready to pay actual attention to what Radar was telling us rather than continue to give in to my echo chamber of a brain.

“..will be expected to be on standby in case anything goes wrong. They have been fully briefed beforehand and are patrolling in an area close enough to be backup if needed but far enough away to not alert the Red Iron. And” - he paused for a moment, checking his mental notes - “that’s that. Any questions before we head out?” No one jumped at the opportunity. “Great. Downstairs and into the vans, then.”

We all did as he said, moving along in a weird blob of spandex and tacky colours.  _ Well, great, I missed basically all of it. Uh, let’s just go over the specifics just in case. Don’t talk until Stroke is handled, don’t go anywhere near Magister when my power’s down, stay out of line of sight from Forge and anyone with his tech, which is probably all of them.  _ We loaded up into two vans and took off. It would only be a few more minutes until I’d have the weight of the world on my shoulders.  _ Breathe, breathe, calm down. _

_ Okay, so, it seems like I could just shift everyone into the building and avoid the whole turret thing altogether? Maybe that’d be too clunky, since I’d have to go in trips, but.. I don’t know, seems safer. Whatever, I just.. just going to do what I’m told and then get out of here. Can’t fuck this up when so many people need me. Too important. Breathe. _

Blare must have noticed I wasn’t doing fantastically, because he tapped my shoulder and handed me a small gadget with a little lever, offering up a sympathetic smile. The others mostly ignored us.

“A music box.”  _ Ah. _ “Kind of fancy. Plays whatever you want, any time, for free.”

“Why?” I took a second to realize how dumb that sounded. “I mean, why are you giving me this?”  _ Shit, or maybe he’s just showing me it? _

“It’s a gift. I give one to everyone on their first mission.”

“This isn’t my first mission.”

“First one with me.” He shrugged, then scooted a little closer to show off the details of his work. He loomed over me, surprisingly beefy for someone without any Brute powers. “It’s only partially my tech, which is why I think it doesn’t break down for a long time. It’s not even that within my specialization, but I think it’s simple enough that I can do it anyways.”  _ Wow, you’re like.. really chill? No offense to Boon, but I sorta thought all Tinkers were smug, hyper-intellectual smartgeniuses. You just kinda lumber about. _

“Ah, well.. thank you.” I smiled back at him, probably extremely awkwardly, and inspected the present. There was a little section etched out that read ‘Shift’.  _ God, I’m really not that creative, huh? _

“When it breaks you can bring it back to me to fix up, and we can chat a bit.”

“Okay.” Unlike a lot of times, where I felt like I just kinda had to play along no matter what to cause the least amount of problems, I genuinely felt like I’d enjoy talking with the guy again. Unfortunately, we didn’t have time to do that now, with the van coming to a stop.

“Alright, everybody out,” Radar ordered. People spilled out of the vehicle, with me leaving last. The other van pulled up a few moments later, and the rest of the team arrived along with it. We were a block or so away from the fortress, not willing to risk the turrets going off before they could be dealt with.  _ That’d be a fight lost before it even started. _

“Shift, Blare, with me,” Meteor Maid said.  _ No messing around, got it. _ We gathered together, wordlessly deciding to go in by touching hands in the middle of a weird huddle. I nearly brought us in before remembering-

“Oh shit, turn off your comms.” Blare complied without much thought, but Meteor Maid scoffed at him and gave me a weird look.

“Already did. You’re an odd kid, you know that?”

“Uh, thanks?” She didn’t react. “Okay, uh.. three.. two.. one..”

_ Breath. _ The air which we take in, the loss of what comes out. A simple bit of shame wrapped up in the constricted act of being your self. Your body in stasis and everything else too, undeniably yourself in all moments.  _ Or something like that. _

“You good?” I’d taken a moment to indulge myself, or my power, or whatever, but the visions or whatever they were had become less and less vivid with time. Whenever someone new came in, though, I liked to take a second to humor them again.  _ It’s like we’re being programmed to process something as alien as this. I kinda miss it, even if it’s served its purpose. _

“Guh..” It only took a little bit for them to get adjusted, having already gone through this process twice before to prepare for the mission. “I’m good,” Meteor Maid concluded. Blare groaned in agreement a moment later.

“Okay, well-”

“Wow.” She looked in awe at the rest of the team. Neither of them had been in here with this many people or things around. “You know, I’ve been doing this for a long time. It takes a lot for a power to impress me. Granted, most of the weirder ones don’t have the option for an insider perspective, but.. You’ve got something pretty neat here, kid.”

“Alright..”  _ What do I say to that? It’s not like I picked this out from a list, and.. you just called me weird. I don’t know. _ “Uh, but we should get going? To reduce the time my power’s down, I mean.”

“Right.” She took a brief moment to locate the building now that it was a completely alien haze of blueish lines, then directed us that way. “There to.” I started going where she asked before hearing another groan from Blare, turning around to see the two of them struggling to catch up to me.

“Oh, sorry, yeah, headaches. Uh..” I wanted to do  _ something _ to help them, but there wasn’t really any such thing to be done. Or maybe.. “Want to.. this sounds stupid but we could hold hands or something and you could close your eyes until we get to the base of the building?”

“I’m fine,” Meteor Maid insisted. Blare just nodded weakly and stumbled over to me, resting a hand on my shoulder. We started the long trip over.  _ I’m going to be on that roof for a lot more than five minutes, aren’t I? _

“Thanks,” he mumbled.

“Ah, uh.. no problem.”

“No, really. You’ve got that hero instinct, it’s good. Lot of people are here just because they have nowhere else to go, but they don’t really..” He paused for a moment to grab his head with his free hand. “Ugh, they don’t really get it as easily as you do. It’s not in their nature or whatever, like it is for you.”

“I.. respectfully disagree..?”  _ Don’t want to scare this guy off, but.. I mean.. that’s just kinda stupid. _ “If that’s okay.”

“Of course it is, there’s no judgement here.”  _ Yeah, when you don’t know I’m trans. Or best friends with an up-and-coming supervillain. Or, I mean..  _ I looked at Meteor Maid, persevering through this uncomfortable situation without anyone’s help.  _ Pretty sure she’s judging me a lot. And you, probably. _

“Alright, well.. Thanks, I guess.” After that, we stayed silent for a while, the only sound in the entire world being our footsteps, heartbeats, and the shuffle of clothing.  _ This isn’t quite as bad as I’d been expecting, I guess. Blare is nice enough, and.. I don’t know. It’s fine. _

_ I need to stop thinking of Quinn as.. evil, I guess? I’ve known her for ages, I know this isn’t some malicious.. whatever the fuck. She’s a good person, behind it, and.. I’m not much better than her. She’s doing awful things for selfless reasons, and I’m doing good things for.. Are they selfish reasons? I don’t even know if I have reasons. I’m doing it because- I mean it’s like he said, I just don’t have anywhere else to go. _

_ Am I supposed to just accept compliments from people who clearly don’t understand me? I know there’s the chance I’m just missing obvious things about myself, I’m.. God, the irony of me not knowing if I’m introspective or not is pretty stupid. Whatever, just.. it could be that, but I doubt it. And I just feel weird accepting nice things being said about me when it’s clear that it comes from a misunderstanding. _

_ God, Ri- Shift. Stop doing this, there’s a mission going on. We’re nearly to the base of the building, and.. I’m going to have to help them get used to climbing up things that you normally can’t, and.. Just, focus. Please. For once in your life just focus on what’s going on in front of you, please. Okay, just a few more steps, and- _

“Okay, cool, we’re halfway there.”

“You call this halfway?” Meteor Maid chided.

“It’s easier than you think. This is honestly the best part, vertical mobility is a lot less overstimulating than horizontal.” I moved over to the wall and grabbed onto some of the grooves in the bricks, leaving Blare behind. “Watch, you can just..” With a little extra effort to make sure I didn’t fuck up the demonstration and completely destroy morale, I climbed up a bit. “There’s no stamina drain so you can do it fairly easily, just be patient.”

“Mm.” She still seemed apprehensive.

“If you fall it won’t hurt you, just means we’ll be stuck here and on the roof a bit longer.”

“Mm,” she repeated. “No alternatives?”

“None that I can think of, unless you know of any secret rock climbing walls.”

“Mm.” She left it at that and got to climbing, taking a minute or so to get the hang of it. Blare, for how badly he was handling my power in general, was ascending far better than I’d expected. Almost as well as I was, and I had significantly more experience.  _ I mean, I guess I don’t usually climb up the sides of buildings unless two are close enough that I can put force on two walls. Imagine if I could wall jump, that’d be pretty cool. Some sort of stickiness would’ve been a nice addition to my power, but I guess that would be asking too much. _

“And this is easier than using a sonic jetpack?” We’d gotten maybe a fourth of the way up before conversation begged to be had again.  _ Guh, I.. Can’t we just focus and be quiet? I’m trying, am I the only one trying? _

“Uh, well, sound doesn’t really travel the same in here. That’s if it would even turn on, since things don’t like to change, and.. I mean, I have a feeling it would be about a thousand times worse than the comm feedback.”

“Gotcha.”  _ Okay, cool, we can stop distracting each other and-  _ “You’re kind of like a Tinker, you know that?”  _ God damn it. _

“Yeah?” No response. “Uh, how?”

“Well, just in your understanding of your power. It’s methodical, you seem to really know the ins and outs in a way that’s different from others. I mean, they know their own powers, obviously, but you just.. Mm, I don’t really know how to explain it.”

“Ah.”  _ I might know what you mean? But also I don’t really at all know what you mean, and it kinda sounds like nonsense. _ “It's more learned, right? Less inherent knowledge, I had to kinda figure it out for myself. The basics, sure, I got that like.. I got that I could teleport and, I mean, you got that you could build stuff. But you have to work to figure out your specialty, right?”

“Yeah, that’s what I mean exactly. You’re good with words.”  _ Not even kinda. Again, compliments from misunderstandings about me. Bleh. _

“Thanks, I guess, yeah.”  _ Okay, let’s just be done now, right? We’re done?  _ Only a few seconds later, he continued on.

“This is taking a lot longer than expected. Tall building, we should’ve practiced a few times or something, I think.”

“Mm, it’s kinda hard to tell the time in here. I think it’s been maybe five minutes for the walk and the climb so far, and we’re halfway, so.. I don’t know, maybe a few more minutes than we thought. It’s okay.”

“It’s more time we’ll be stuck doing nothing.” It was the first time Meteor Maid had talked in a little while, and it was to criticize me.  _ Of course you’re marrying Radar. Of course. _ I didn’t respond.

As we climbed up, slowly and steadily without any setbacks, I came across a weird section of the wall. Not  _ of _ the wall, but attached to it. Protruding from it. An impossibly smooth blob of.. nothing? It hung above us, near the top of the building, obscuring a section of the outlined world in black beyond black, a void in a reality already devoid of most substance.

“What’s that?”

“I’m.. not sure..?” The closer we got, the more uneasy I felt. I considered just leaving it be, but as we climbed past it I lost control of myself, taking one morbidly curious finger and giving it the slightest of touches-

Sudden, endless boiling in my essence, sickness and disruption. If I could’ve thrown up, nothing within me would have been left inside. Ringing and crashing and nothing that made sense, but nothing else came to replace it. A severed link, a terrible break and-

And I was fine. I blinked, my palm pressed against the orb, and I was fine. The others didn’t seem to notice anything had happened. The feeling, I recognized, was nullification. Failsafe’s radius - he was leaning against the wall on the other side. Apparently my power was no exception to his impact.  _ We can use this, this is good intel. _

“Uh, so, this thing?” There wasn’t much reason to specify what I was talking about. “This is Failsafe, I think.” Neither of them seemed  _ too _ surprised, but that might’ve just been because we were very far from the ground, blue outlines, and I was unable to focus on them without risking falling down.

“Ah, well we’re..” She looked down and immediately looked back up, closing her eyes and pausing the climb to recuperate. “Mm, we’ll figure out how high up he is when we get to the top, and we can tell the others where he is.” She laughed a little. “Always nice when someone’s power screws them over.”  _ ‘Someone’s’? Not villains specifically? I mean, doesn’t  _ your _ power fall under that category? Fuck, Radar’s too. Maybe just misspoke? _

“I guess.” We were nearing the end of our journey, and with no mishaps besides a slip early on near the very bottom - a couple feet of progress lost. As much as I wanted to be excited for the approaching end, I couldn’t help but stress about the possibility for something to go wrong in our final stretch.

It would’ve been the perfect time for it, too, narratively speaking. Hero’s journey - a setback when things were looking just a little too easy. Except instead of us bonding on the second trip and becoming closer friends, it would just mean I’d have to nearly double my exposure to Meteor Maid.  _ Pretty sure neither of us want that. _

Thankfully defying expectations, we made it up without problem.  _ I guess that’s one more point towards the idea that the world isn’t being bound by narrative tropes. Quinn will be so disappointed. _ Blare accepted my hand in assisting him up onto the roof, but I didn’t even offer it to Meteor Maid. There was basically no chance of her being happy with the offer, and there was even the possibility of her outright rejecting me, which would make the entire thing even more awkward.

“Okay, Shift, you got the device?”  _ Fuck, what? _

“Uhhh,” I anxiously warbled.

“Here.” Blare saved my ass, handing me a surprisingly small tube-looking machine.  _ Maybe this was to counteract the Marshals’ Tinker, back then? Make the tech small to begin with so she can’t use it without ending up with uselessly tiny copies? Mm. _ “I don’t give out my tech until it’s needed; it’s bad luck.” The statement was more to me than her.

“Spaced it, I guess.” She surveyed the three turrets placed in a triangle along the rooftop, moving on like it was nothing.  _ I guess it  _ was _ nothing? Don’t make it a big deal, it’s fine. Just on edge from all the other things - she’s not out to get me. _ “Alright, I’ll take the solo, you two get east and west.”

Neither of us had any complaints. I ended up at the one furthest from our starting point, but it didn’t matter much. A few extra feet, if even that. The biggest issue was that there was a big box nearby that I could  _ probably _ deduce to just be an air conditioning system or something, but.. I didn’t like it.  _ Whatever. _ I placed Blare’s tech in the center of the top of the turret and held my hand over the latch.  _ Just push that up and press the button, it’s easy. _

“Okay, uh..”  _ But if I fuck this up then we’re all completely trashed, right? I- No, okay, I’ll have the easiest time dealing with this because I’m the one who knows exactly when my power’s going down. It’s fine, it’ll be fine.  _ “You two ready?”

“Ready,” Meteor Maid said.

“Sure enough,” said Blare.

“Okay.”  _ These two definitely won’t fuck it up, they’ve been doing it for a long time and- God, shut up and focus!  _ “On zero. Three.. Two.. One..” I winced in preparation. “Now!” All at once, colour and motion returned to the world.  _ Latch, button- _ The device was pounding away at the turret with soundwaves before it even had a chance to turn towards me, disabling it by brute force. “Aha! We-”

A loud series of beeps rang through the air, followed by an explosion of static and a loud thud. Whipping around, I barely caught the last second of Meteor Maid falling to the ground behind the turret and out of vision. Immediately after taking a couple shots at her, it turned around as fast as it could-  _ Fuck! _ Leaping behind the box that was in fact an air conditioning system, I managed to evade a shot.

“Blare!” There was no way he hadn’t noticed already, but I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself if he’d somehow missed it. I couldn’t make out what actually happened, but a shot went off before the turret stopped making any noise.  _ Fuck fuck fuck! _ I turned on my comm. “Radar, anyone, Maid’s been hit and Blare’s-”

“I’m okay,” he chimed in. “Took a shot but I’m safe.” He’d at the very least been left with one working arm, enough to ask for backup.

“What happened?” It was Radar, unsurprisingly.

“I don’t know, the thing made some noise and she just dropped, I-”

“She was the only one who’s had direct exposure to Forge’s tech. He must have some form of on-touch safety precaution.” He took a moment, exhaling harshly. “Damn it.”

“I’m sorry.”  _ Please don’t hate me more than you already do. _

“Don’t, you couldn’t have done anything.” He sighed. “Blare, are you fit for combat?”

“Guh, looking at it now that things are calmed down a bit, not really. Whole left side’s numb.” Radar swore beneath his breath, barely audible over the comms.

“Shift.” He sighed. “Change of plans.”


	6. Sparks 4.5 R

“Change of.. plans? What?”

“Nothing serious, don’t worry. The entrance to the building is on the other side from the remaining turret, so it won’t be an issue. When your power is up, you’re going to shift over to Blare, retrieve his tech, and then bring the two of you down from the roof. You’ll be bringing the equipment to me inside. We’ll deal with” - he hesitated, just slightly - “with Meteor Maid later.”

“Uh, alright, I-” Before I could say anything more, the connection was dropped. There wouldn’t be much point in requesting to be back on the line again, and he almost certainly needed it for something more important. Instead, I just decided to call out to Blare. “Uh, so hey!” He laughed lopsidedly, like only half of him was really feeling it.

“Hey there.” His voice was droopy, missing all of the confidence it had only a few moments earlier. Despite that, he seemed almost amused.

“What’s uh.. What’s up? You doing okay?”

“More or less.”

“Okay..”  _ This sucks. _ “So, uh, what’s so funny?”

“Oh, nothing really.” He took a long, labored breath.  _ Shit, is Meteor Maid going to suffocate because of this guy? She took two shots and whatever the fuck that explosion was, enough that she can’t even get up off the ground. Is she awake? Is she  _ alive? _ Was that why Radar took a second to- fuck. Fuck fuck fuck, don’t stress on that just focus on the now. _

“Uh, hah, uh.. Then why the.. You know?”

“We had this whole plan - and those never survive more than a few seconds into the fight - but we didn’t stop to consider something as simple as a close-ranged defense system. All because I didn’t want to spend another hour on one of those bombs, and maybe a bit because Maid doesn’t get to participate very often.” He chuckled again. “It’s just something you have to laugh at, else it makes you feel awful.”

“Ah..”  _ I guess that’s probably a better alternative to beating the shit out of a punching bag, but I’m not sure I could do that.  _ “Guh, uh.. You think she can hear us? Maid?”  _ Can I call her that? _

“Oh, I’m sure of it. Hey, Maid!” Whether his pause was to wait for a response or something else, I couldn’t say, but there unsurprisingly wasn’t one. “Yeah, it’d be too merciful for his tech to knock you out cold. Only way she’s down for the count is if she has a concussion, which..” Another forced laugh. “Well, let’s not think about that.”

“Yeah.”  _ A concussion would be preferred in my eyes, but I guess you aren’t thinking about that. Is that because you have more experience on the field or because you’re ‘better’ at ignoring your problems? _

“Mm, hey.”

“Yeah?”

“How long until you can do your thing?”

“Uh.. Five minutes? Why?”

“Here, the turret’s looking the other way, you can easily get behind my shield without getting hit, and I can give you my jetpack. Get into the fight a little sooner - get the tech to Radar faster.”  _ Your shield? _

It was only at that moment that I realized I’d been awkwardly squatting in the least comfortable possible position rather than sitting down to rest. I shuffled over to the side of the box to see that Blare was being kept safe by a field of..  _ sonic vibrations, I guess? _ There was a small device on the ground that was distorting the area above it for a few feet; I wasn’t sure how it worked. He was spread out behind it, across the ground, and waved over at me with his right arm upon noticing I was looking.

“Hey.”

“Uh, hi.” I scooted forward a little more and peeked out at the turret. It didn’t seem to notice me - however it was detecting us, it couldn’t see me from just my eyes up being exposed. “Is there enough room behind there? Hard to really see it from here.”

“Mm.” He moved his head up a fraction and inspected it. “Yeah.”

“Okay, uh..”  _ Deep breath. Worst case scenario, uh.. Even if it hits my arm, I can still bring the tech to Radar. It’ll feel awful, but- Or, well, shit. Pretty sure Blare only took one hit, and it’s looking like the entire left half of his body got taken out. I.. With my power, I could still probably do it. Just- Whatever, don’t get hit. _

_ Three.. two.. one.. _ I rushed forward, the turret coming to life and trying to chase after me. It didn’t even manage to get a shot off before I was safe, crouching over an incredibly goofy looking hero.

“Can’t get at a lot of the stuff, you’ll have to grab it off of me.”

“Right, uh..” I looked him over, trying to figure out which bits were tech I could take off of him and what was just part of his clothes.

“Here, there’s some grenades in my pocket.” He rolled himself over a tiny bit, and I..  _ Oh god this is weird. _ I reached down into his pocket and found a few small balls-  _ spheres. _ Once I took them out, he relaxed. “Okay, take the gun from the side of my left pant leg.” I went to take it when-  _ “My _ left.”

“Right, sorry.” I retrieved it and exhaled sharply. It was heavier than it looked, and a bit too big for my hands, but I’d have to deal. “What else?”

“The hard one. Jetpack, under me. Help me over.” He lifted his side up, and I helped flop him onto his stomach, making sure he didn’t fall out of the shield’s protection. He grunted as his face hit the ground.  _ Sorry.  _ “Okay, okay, it’s that flat thing on my back, pops right off if you press the small button on the top left.” Feeling around, I eventually found what he was talking about, the jetpack detaching in an instant once it was pressed. As it came off, it expanded out from a weird book-like thing into something I could actually recognize as a jetpack. “Got it?”

“Yeah.” It was able to be put it on more or less like a backpack.

“Alright, that’s it. I can push myself back onto my back - just get that to Radar, press the button on the strap to turn it on.”

“Are you sure? I- Wait, why wouldn’t you just have used this to join the fight sooner? Originally, I mean, before things went wrong.”

“It’s..” He sighed - or maybe groaned - and began lifting himself up. I offered my help, and he didn’t object. Once he was back in a slightly more comfortable position, he continued. “It’s not registered yet.”

“So it’s- you don’t know if it works?”

“No, I know it works, just haven’t convinced people of that yet. Long process, I procrastinate it more than I should.” He laughed once more with a bit more strength than the earlier ones. “I’ll deal with the repercussions, just get out of here before our time saving effort was for nothing.”

“I don’t want-”

“Kid, go.” I paused for a moment, watching him. After wasting time for a few seconds, I nodded and turned to face the edge and took a few steps over to it.

_ Fuck. _ Looking down, all of the dread that my power had managed to take away came rushing back. That confidence I’d gotten wasn’t  _ earned, _ it was just handed to me. Now, with my power unavailable, the confidence was being ripped out of my hands.  _ Please work. _ I wouldn’t be able to test it beforehand without risking flying high enough to get shot by the turret. There was nothing else I could do, so with a trembling breath and a fuckton of fear, I jumped.

Falling had never felt quite so invigorating. Sure, I hadn’t ever actually fallen from a building when adrenaline and wind were elements at play, but  _ holy shit _ did it make a difference.  _ Fuck fuck fuck fuck fuck! _ Finally remembering the way I was going to  _ not _ die from this fall, I pressed the big button on the strap. Very suddenly, and fairly painfully, my descent slowed down. It was physically punishing me for waiting so long, but the sound it made was almost just as bad, pounding against my ears in loud, pulsing hisses.  _ Definitely not useful for a stealth mission. _

_ Okay, so now what? _ I hovered ten or so feet above the ground with no idea how to control the jetpack and getting  _ really _ sick of the noise it was making.  _ How far do you have to go before a fall does damage?  _ Even just thinking about that was enough to bring back my fear of heights in full force.  _ Okay, okay no, uh, hah, not that. Uh. _

_ Fuck, I guess I can just..  _ Bracing for the potential mishap, I put my hand on the button again and tapped it. Immediately after I started dropping I tapped it again, settling a few feet lower.  _ Haha! _ I repeated the process a couple times, then dropped down the last little bit.  _ Fuck yeah! _ Triumphantly, I stood before the front door and took a deep breath, then pinged Radar with my comm. The sound beeped, but he didn’t say anything.  _ Stroke, got it. _

“Hey, I’m at the entrance. Uh, coming in and.. yeah. Thought you should know.” I wanted to ask him where he was, but talking wasn’t an option for him and it’d also reveal that I wasn’t paying enough attention when he was going over the plan fifty thousand times. With our interaction done, the line cut off again.  _ Well, no point in waiting. Just have to use my best judgement.  _ I turned my comm off ahead of time, in case I needed to make an emergency shift.

Going into the abandoned front desk, I immediately found there to be two staircases on the left and rightmost parts of the room. There was also an elevator, but using it would’ve been one of the dumbest possible things I could do at the moment, perhaps even above just running away.  _ Uhhh.. Left. Think I heard left? I don’t know, fuck, I didn’t hear anything. Just.. left. Going left. _

I crept up the stairs I’d decided to go with, holding the gun at the ready in case I needed to use it.  _ Or, hold it pointed down, right? Like cops?  _ Adjusting my posture, I reached the top to find an empty room with two doors.  _ These guys don’t decorate much, huh? Whatever, another choice, uh.. _ I tried to listen for any signs of combat, but the mission was clearly still in the sneaky side of things.  _ If I had access to the blue I could survey both rooms before making my decision, but fuck me I guess. _

I decided to go left again, but the door was locked when I tried to turn the handle.  _ Great. _ Going right instead, it opened up to-

“Shit.” The instant the words came out of my mouth I regretted it, and an instant later I felt something  _ vital _ get torn out of me. Shy and Trojan were dealing with Stroke and Failsafe, and I’d made one of the worst mistakes of my life. At least I could count on the basic fact of three being more than two, but I’d absolutely shot our team in the foot when we were already down a member.

Rather than waste time lamenting how stupid I was, I lifted the gun up and aimed for Stroke. It might not have even  _ worked _ on Failsafe, given how his power interacted with Tinker tech. How had he even gotten downstairs so quickly? I took the shot, a burst of sound firing directly at her, and- It all dispersed the instant it got near her, going from a huge blast to a disappointing poof. They were too close together. I was just like Shy and Trojan in this situation: completely powerless.

Worse than anything else, I was carrying around a bunch of highly dangerous Tinker tech that I couldn’t use but couldn’t risk putting down somewhere, and nowhere on my costume to hold all of it. Was I supposed to just hit the enemies with someone else’s highly expensive property? With everything stacked against me, I wasn’t all too sure that I wouldn’t be more hindrance than help.

Three was still bigger than two, so I charged them with as much force as I could manage, holding the gun down to try to keep it safe. I nearly missed, having telegraphed my attack way too long in advance, but it was pretty hard to dodge a bull rush while staying within a few feet of someone. Colliding into them, Stroke and I fell to the ground, her beneath me. Failsafe stumbled, but managed to stay upright.

Shy took a second to react, a bit shocked by my decision, but Trojan stepped in immediately with a similarly reckless kick to Failsafe’s chest. The play worked out, getting him to stumble back a few feet, exposing Stroke. To make things ever better, my power either came back in that exact moment, or it had just been being suppressed by Failsafe’s radius. Regardless, I shifted and hopped off of her.

Was there anything else I needed to do? Shy was, as far as I knew, still in the same spot. Would I be able to help her without giving Stroke more to work with before Trojan dealt with her? Even if I could, would that outweigh startling her with the teleportation? Probably not, to both of them, and I still couldn’t even see her. I settled on just opening things up for Trojan and standing as close to Failsafe’s radius as I could.

I shifted out and immediately rushed forward to slam into Failsafe for a third strike in a very short period of time, and this one finally got him to fall down. My foot over his chest to keep him from getting back up, I checked behind me to see Trojan phasing his way through Stroke, and watched her will be removed from her. The brief thought of that happening to me took me off guard long enough for Failsafe to grab my foot and pull me to the ground with him, my head hitting the ground hard enough to daze me a bit.

Shy shouted something to me while Trojan whispered to Stroke, running over to help with a taser in hand. By the time I recovered, she was being hit by a soundwave and thrown into the wall. The fucker had taken the gun off of me, and now my teammate had nearly dented a side of the room.

I scrambled around to try to disrupt him in some way, and was shot in the midst of that. The asshole had failed to learn from my mistakes, because the wave went around me harmlessly. Having scrambled enough to be face to face with him, I punched him in the face, and holy fuck did it hurt. Boxing gloves and punching bags did more to shield me from that kinda pain than I would have thought. I needed a moment, pushing myself away from him so Trojan and Stroke could step in.

Only Trojan came, kicking Failsafe while he was down and snatching the gun. Stroke was on the other side of the room, idly waiting for commands. Trojan was thankfully not me, because I would’ve just led her right to the immunity zone without thinking, taking my mistake count to an unacceptable number. Things were going pretty well, all things considered.

That fleeting sense of victory was shattered when Magister came in through the door I’d entered and immediately began channeling his black hole. The pull wasn’t affecting Failsafe, Trojan, or I, but Stroke and an apparently unconscious Shy were immediately sucked towards it.

I didn’t have time to think about it, running out of Failsafe’s radius and over to Shy, shifting back out a millisecond before I reached her. We both began flying towards the void, me holding her in a tight hug to make sure I didn’t lose contact. If my power’s cooldown could be shorter any one time, now would’ve been perfect.

We shifted in a fraction of a second before we made contact with the black hole. I quickly surveyed my surroundings, seeing that Magister had stepped in front of Stroke’s path to bodyblock her. I had a little more breathing room now, but not much, so I picked up Shy and brought us as close to the door furthest from the threat as I could. My hand as tightly grasped onto the knob and my teammate as I could manage, I brought us out.

The momentum from the state we were in when I first shifted combined with the sudden return to being pulled to make my tight grip only barely enough. The door flung up the instant I turned the knob, and I threw Shy into the next room with as much force as I could muster. She ended up just far enough to the left of the door to be safe.

As if to make fun of the effort I’d just put in, Magister canceled his effect, making me slam to the ground once again. My power added even more insult to injury, coming back as soon as I finished clumsily picking myself up. I looked back to see that Stroke had been cured of her affliction, and Trojan was losing badly against the three villains.

The three of them were beating the shit out of him, with Failsafe sitting on him to make sure he couldn’t phase away. There was no way for him to use his power that wouldn’t be using it  _ on _ Failsafe, technically, so he was completely fucked. What the fuck was I supposed to do here? With the state of my teammates, it would basically be just me with no power versus three terrifying threats.

Despite everything being stacked against me, I charged forward for the third time in as many minutes. This time, however, I took out my baton to see if I could add to the assault. If I could displace them just enough to shift Trojan away, that would be a win in my books. Unfortunately for me, using the same tactic so many times in a row was basically guaranteeing failure, and that was without factoring in how easy it was to see coming.

To make matters worse, I’d once again completely forgotten about Blare’s tech. It was apparently Stroke’s turn to try out, taking a break from kicking Trojan to take a shot at me. I had to shift to avoid the blast, and just like the Marshals fight I was  _ extremely _ aware of how little time I had to think through things. I couldn’t even marvel at how the soundwave looked in the blue.

My rough plan led to me running towards Failsafe’s orb and shifting out as close to the collision point as I could manage, then slamming my baton into Stroke’s face. Boon could deal with it later, if necessary. I couldn’t be holding back when they were going as hard on my teammate as they were.

Thankfully, my effort worked out, sending her reeling backwards and knocking the gun out of her hands. I could only hope it wouldn’t break with all the throwing around we’d been doing with it. Blare would have to forgive me.

I immediately followed up with a strike to Magister, who blocked most of the blow with one arm before punching me with the other. We exchanged a few blows, each of mine made with the intent to bring us a bit further from Failsafe. By the time Stroke recovered from my attack, we were outside of the radius. I made sure my hand was firmly gripping Magister’s coat as she reached back to punch me herself.

The instant her fist touched my face, I shifted all of us in. No time to fuck around, I used their disorientation to throw them as far away from me as possible. A fraction of a second before Stroke hit the ground, I shifted out. I could try to justify it as just saving time, but she deserved the pain.

It was at that moment that Failsafe realized he needed to stop messing around with Trojan, but it was already too late. I kicked him in the back, and once he bounced back I grabbed the shoulders of his costume and tugged as hard as I could. He flopped off of Trojan enough that I was able to drag him out of Failsafe’s range and shift us to the door.

We hurried through to the other side, a process that was mostly me helping shove him along, and I grabbed the unconscious Shy and propped her up on my shoulder. Magister tried to fuck us over with his black hole, but we were too far away at that point. As soon as I was able to shift in, I did, and a significant chunk of the pressure and tension from the last few minutes left me. Not physically of course, because my power was awful like that, but at least I was able to feel some mental relief.

Of course, however, I’d forgotten something. I’d left Blare’s gun on the floor, practically begging for it to be taken by Failsafe if it wasn’t in the process of being sucked up by Magister. There was no time for me to scold myself, I had to focus on getting us to the other main group. The biggest problem there, of course, was that I still had no idea where they were beyond a general idea of them having taken the right staircase instead of the left.

We moved along through the room and up the stairs. The other two doors might have been better options, but going through them would have required leaving our temporary safety. As such, it wasn’t really an option when the threat was so close by.

By the time we got up the stairs, Trojan had managed to carry some of Shy’s weight. I wanted to tell him that it wouldn’t actually do anything, neither help nor harm to anyone involved, but I couldn’t.

It was the first time I’d really had the ability to process that fact. All of english, the entire thing, had been taken from me. Would I be able to read and write, or would that be covered? It was shocking how much being languageless impacted your ability to think about things. It wasn’t  _ reduced, _ when one boiled it down, but it had its capabilities heavily shifted. New possibilities opened up, and many others went away.

I wondered if I was experiencing something similar to what Vincent had come to live with. More extreme, obviously, but.. the way he’d looked when he found out he was able to talk in my power for the first time.. It struck me as a bit naive that I’d somewhat been hoping I’d be able to get the same benefit.

Now that I had the time to think about it, Shy had seemed fairly off. I’d never seen her in a fight before then, but it seemed unlikely she’d be so quick to freeze up under normal circumstances. It made sense to assume that she either had been hit by Stroke’s power before I showed up, or while I was busy fighting.

Maybe we’d be able to patch things up a bit more as we both spent the next however long recovering from this. I almost wished it wasn’t the weekend, because then I’d have an excuse to stay home from school. At another time, I would’ve imagined how funny the conversation for calling in sick would be, but I wasn’t able to at the moment. Besides, I needed to focus on the mission - we’d found Radar’s group.

We shifted out, and the tension in my shoulders immediately dissipated. Trojan, however, was suddenly forced to regret helping hold Shy up. Radar was already helping set Shy down up against a wall by the time the rest of the team realized we were here.

Trojan and Radar exchanged some hushed words, and I distracted myself from the discomfort of having no idea what they were saying by watching as Boon came over to patch Shy up. His actions were so precise, using the tech in a way I hadn’t seen anyone else do. Whether that was the result of so much exposure with it or a secondary power, I couldn’t say.

As consciousness returned to Shy’s eyes, fluttering open, my attention was pulled over by Radar. He held his hand out, and I gave him Blare’s tech as quickly as possible. I’d fucked up enough already, the least I could do was try to do my best at what I was asked to do. He pocketed the grenades and inspected the jetpack, before handing it back to me.

I looked at him, confused. After a brief moment of consideration, he gestured in a way that I gathered as something along the lines of him needing it less than I did. I took it and gave him a thumbs up. Almost immediately after, he pointed to me and said something, his other hand emphasizing the act of speaking. Then, he pointed to the ground.

Was I meant to tell him what had happened with the Red Irons? Was Trojan not able to do that himself? Most importantly, how would I even go about telling him? Before I could get too caught up on the specifics, he motioned for me to hurry up.

“Aun.. Mornng.. hhroguh..?” Thankfully, that seemed to be enough for him to work with, because doing that was making me very self conscious, and also kinda highlighted the horror of the situation. His power must have let him translate my nonsense into some form of truth, somehow.

He let me be, talking with the others. In a way, it was nice to be so distant from people - to not have to worry about them, but having distance forced onto me was a unique kind of awful. I wondered, for a moment, if I’d be able to wait out the effect with my power, once the fight was over. Probably not, I decided.

With nothing to do, I checked back up on Boon. He’d helped Shy through a probable concussion, and was talking with her about something. Apparently he’d taken a moment to start the process of patching up Trojan, because nearly all signs of the conflict were missing. Did I need help? Not in any obvious way, I guessed, or Boon likely would have given me something.

While watching Shy, I managed to piece together what it was Stroke had taken from her. I’d thought she was in shock, or something like that, but it was clear now that she’d lost her understanding of facial expressions. It was weird to see her completely affectless, given how she was usually one of the more expressive people I knew. The oddity of it was only enhanced by the emotional tone of her voice.

“Onn..?” I didn’t realize I was saying something until it had happened, but it seemed I’d been trying to get Radar’s attention. After wrapping up a quick talk with some of the others, he came back over to me. I guess I  _ was _ uncertain of what I should be doing, and he was the leader, so it made some amount of sense. Now all I had to do was try to convey that.. “Mmrrrol nrrpa?”

He took a second to respond, but it seemed like he understood what I was saying from the start and was just trying to think of how to reply. Both in the sense of what I should be doing, and the actions he’d have to take for me to understand. When he was ready, he made a decisive punch to the air and motioned to the whole team. I nodded.

Apparently things had changed enough that I was actually going to be part of the fight. Perhaps it was because I’d already been in a fight, so there wasn’t much more to lose in having me stick around. It could have just as easily been because I likely wouldn’t be able to safely exit the building when there was such a high chance of running into the villains again.

It would’ve been really,  _ really _ nice to know what the plan of action was, but maybe I was being given some sort of ironic karmic punishment for all the time I’d ignored this exact thing. We only had so long before the group a few stories down caught up to us, and we were in prime position to be surrounded. Sure, we outnumbered them, but the Red Iron was not exactly  _ lacking _ in the way of high level threats.

Very suddenly, everyone went silent. I could only guess that they saw the risk of talking to be too high, both because of Stroke and also just because it could alert the Red Irons to where we were.

Wordlessly, we started migrating through the building. I’d expected Iron Willy to be on the top floor in some sort of evil office of evilness, but we apparently weren’t going up the stairs any further.

The place was much better decorated near the top, interestingly enough. The entire situation had subverted my expectations quite a bit, since I’d also assumed that the lower floors would be a bit more organized. Then again, it wasn’t like anyone was coming to visit, so there wasn’t much point.

Though I logically knew I was doing the right thing by following along, I couldn’t help but feel like I was making a mistake that I just didn’t realize because I had misunderstood Radar somehow. The little voice that criticized me might have lost its words, but it didn’t need to work under those rules. Even though nobody was talking, I still felt like I might’ve been missing out on some orders being given right that moment.

After a little while of moving around, I remembered that Radar could probably sense almost everything in the entire building. Why he’d needed me to tell him what happened, I didn’t know. Perhaps he just wanted to fill in the blanks Failsafe caused?

The more I thought about it, though, the less any of this made sense. Surely he would have known Magister was coming to join the fight, and could have told us through the comms as a warning. Then again, my comm had been off, Shy was unconscious, and Trojan was.. I couldn’t quite recall what was going on right before Magister arrived. Even if one of them had gotten the message, it wasn’t like they could have told me.

Did Stroke’s power work over comms? Would she have been able to shut down Radar? Maybe part of why he wasn’t doing that despite knowing where she was at all times was because we didn’t know if that was a limit of hers or not. Today was not at all the best time to figure that out.

Regardless, I knew now that there was no real chance of us being ambushed. Radar was taking us to Iron Willy, most likely, and that fight would be.. something. Forge would be there, maybe? There was an unbearable amount of uncertainties, and I knew less about what was going on than anyone else. Just like with isolation, it didn’t feel good to be left in the dark by force. Ignorance was only ever enjoyable when I didn’t know what I didn’t know.

Would I be able to read or write? Radar would’ve used that to communicate with me if that was an option, probably, but maybe we just didn’t have anything to do that with.

I grumbled, frustrating myself and then getting even more frustrated at my inability to even properly think about why I was so frustrated. To feel like an  _ idiot _ amidst some of the smartest people I knew. To some extent, I always did, but this was something far beyond that. It seemed unfair that one should ever have to be aware of how stupid they were.

Before my wordless internal rants could trail on any longer, we all came to a sudden stop. Over and through the crowd, I saw Radar point to the wall on the right, and watched as people anticipated something.

What was it? What was I forgetting? Was it something they’d established that I hadn’t been able to be a part of? Would it answer any of my questions?

A fraction of a second later, the room lit up in blinding light as Chimera burst through the wall, his forcefield radiating around him. He surveyed the lot of us as quickly as he could, then shut his field off and drifted down to the ground, a few feet away from Radar. I realized most of the group was preparing to fight, as if they really thought the multicoloured crime fighter would suddenly turn on the heroes and try to kill all of us.

Radar said something, under his breath, and Chimera responded. The first words he’d said to anyone, as far as we knew, and I was missing them. All because of one of the dumbest mistakes of my life - one that was progressively becoming more and more regretful.

After a few more words were exchanged, he took a few steps back, reactivated his field, and flew through the ceiling. Was he planning on taking out Iron Willy himself? Would his field protect him from Forge’s tech?

More importantly, what were we supposed to do now? Radar seemed as stumped on that front as I was, standing there and thinking. Or, no, he was probably surveying the fight. Of course he would know what was going on at all times, because  _ he _ wasn’t a dumbass.

I was  _ so _ sick of being worthless, of holding the team back, of being the  _ errand girl, _ only meant to deliver the important people and things to where they could be useful.

No, if Chimera got to be a badass on his own despite the PRT wanting him behind bars, then I was going to do something too. I shifted over to the hole Chimera had left and turned the jetpack on before anyone could stop me, ascending up through the last few remaining floors of the building.

Nobody called out to stop me from going and accidentally getting myself hurt or killed, too afraid of Stroke, and I genuinely couldn’t imagine it going any differently if she wasn’t an issue. Nobody wanted me around; I was a background character in my own life, and it was entirely my own fault.

Once I reached the top and had safely landed, I saw Chimera staring down some woman behind a desk. Was this some kind of ploy? A trap? She was wearing the Red Iron outfit, and didn’t seem concerned about what was going on, but why wasn’t Chimera doing anything? Was this a secret member, or something else? Was she the reason Failsafe had gotten downstairs so quickly? A Mover?

She got up, leaning on a cane for support, and laughed. For all I’d lost, at least I could tell when someone was laughing. She held the cane up and pointed at me with the end. Chimera turned to look at me, and seemed surprised at my presence. He hadn’t even noticed I’d entered, apparently, despite all the noise I’d made. Was he deaf? No, he’d just talked with Radar. He just didn’t care until he saw it was me. Me, the worthless newbie of the Wards.

I’d show him, and everyone. I would be something  _ more _ than that, more than some trashy freak, some stupid boy who wanted to be a heroine despite having such an awful power.

I ran at the woman and turned on my comm. If I was going to be useful, I’d have to take a lesson from the only one on the team who even remotely respected me.

The instant I reached the woman she moved to dodge and parry me, but I shifted us both in at the first millisecond of contact.

Immediately, the sound came. Every second brought exponentially increasing volume, the void screeching more than any one person could ever dare to deal with, but I kept us in. If I had to suffer, the rot of this world would have to go through the same. No matter how bad my pain was in that moment, I knew it had to have been worse for her.

I’d found a way to properly weaponize my power, and I was going to utilize it to its fullest.. Even if it killed me.


	7. Sparks 4.6 R

Was I doing something awful? Would this count as reveling in someone else’s misery? With how many lives the Red Iron had ruined or ended, did it matter? I was a  _ hero, _ after all, wasn’t I? That’s what everyone had said, what I was supposed to believe. Was I being heroic? After a certain point, no, the ever-increasing waves of sound were nothing more than incredibly excessive. I’d done what I needed to do; she’d suffered enough.

I shifted us out, bringing us both an indescribable amount of relief. It was almost euphoric, hormones rushing through me because I was suddenly feeling so much better than moments before. There wasn’t time to dwell on it, though. Looking to Chimera, I pointed at the woman - directing him to take action.

He stood there and did nothing but watch. All of the pain I’d endured to give him an opening, to counter this mystery woman with who  _ knew _ what kind of power, and he just waited. What was he waiting for? If it wasn’t because he needed a way in, then why was he just standing around when I arrived? What was keeping him from acting?

He said something, and despite not knowing the contents of the words, I could tell he was disappointed. In me? In what I had just done for him? As if I was- And then the woman tapped my shoulder, and I looked around to see her just.. standing there. Why was nobody doing  _ anything? _ I’d just  _ tortured _ this villain and she was barely even reacting - no retaliation. Hell, she didn’t even seem  _ that _ concerned about what had just happened.

She said something back to Chimera, in a similar tone to him, and sat back down in her chair. A few moments later, she said something to me. At least, she was looking at me. I might’ve been imagining things, but something she said sounded familiar. Either Stroke’s effect was wearing off on me already, or it was something I’d heard a few times when Radar was talking. This didn’t do much for me, since I could easily remember there being loads of words that were said a lot of the time.

I got an extra hint, though, when she repeated the word and dragged her hand across her face. Ideas came to mind, but I couldn’t quite place it. It was an action, it had to be that action, but why had people been saying it? More importantly, why was she even doing this? Why was I just going along with it?

I looked to Chimera and gestured to the woman, trying again to spur something in him. He just needed to do  _ anything _ and this would have been worth it. Worth doing the thing Quinn did: running off and making terrible decisions on my own without considering the consequences.

Still, though, he did nothing. If he wasn’t going to attack her, then why wasn’t he dealing with the rest of the Red Irons? It didn’t  _ seem _ like he was under some Master effect, and he’d fought these enemies so many times before. Why else would he be here, if not to help out again? What the fuck had these two said to each other that was so much more important than  _ taking her out? _

Whatever, if nothing was going to happen here, I wasn’t going to stick around and be useless as well. I needed to find something to make up for my stupidity, and this obviously wasn’t where I’d get it. I’d go and find the remaining members, Forge and Iron Willy, I’d-

I paused, a realization hitting me far later than it probably should have. If this was the office for the big boss, which it certainly seemed to be, and there wasn’t another known woman on the Red Iron team besides Stroke.. Nobody had ever seen Iron Willy’s face, and no one knew ‘his’ power, so it easily could’ve been what had allowed for Failsafe’s fast traversal through the building. It made much more sense for this woman to be Iron Willy than anything else.

Facing the woman again, I walked over, taking enough time to really think through my theory. I didn’t want to make even more of a fool of myself, and it wasn’t exactly  _ easy _ to make deductions when all I had to go off of was pictures and base concepts.

Could I write? Now was the time to find out - I took a piece of paper from her desk with some other writing on it, and she didn’t seem to mind. I needed a pen, and when she saw me looking around for it, she provided me with one off her person. Could the leader of such an awful organization really be acting this polite around someone who had just assaulted her and was working with the Wards to try to take her and her team down? Just how confident was she in her ability to get out of this situation?

I stared down at a blank section of the paper, pen in hand, and.. nothing. Checking the words that were already there, they were.. nothing. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Nonsense, all of it, and she must have known. She’d been working with Stroke for a long time, she had to have known that I wouldn’t be able to do anything. Had she accounted for every possibility she could see? Was she a precog? Why was she so fucking confident?

Writing wasn’t an option. As a small vent to the immense frustration at everything going on, and maybe an act of defiance against the eerily calm nature of the room, I scribbled over the words that were already there.

Unsatisfied, I snapped the pen in half as well, ink splattering up and crashing back down onto the desk. That  _ meant _ something to me, at least. Words were some abstract nothing, but it seemed like some decently expensive wood that I’d stained. Despite it, though, Iron Willy stayed calm. After a few long moments, she held another pen out to me, adding insult to injury.

I snapped. Not the pen,  _ me. _ I flung myself over the desk and at the woman, and once we hit the ground I hit her in the face. And again. And again. And I stared at her, looming over this monster of a woman, and the specks of blood across her face, and she stared back. And she smiled, just slightly.

Tears fell from my face onto hers. What was she doing to me? What was I becoming? It hurt so much, all of it, everything I was doing meaning  _ nothing, _ making up for  _ none of it, _ because I was worthless. Because no matter what I tried, of  _ course _ nobody cared. Why would they ever? What had I ever done to deserve respect? Recognition? I didn’t deserve my powers, as pathetic as they were. Someone as awful as me shouldn’t have ever been given responsibility.

I stood up, getting off of Iron Willy, and took a few steps away. As terrible as she was, I’d just punched a woman. Behind the bullshit, behind me pretending I was a girl or a hero or whatever, I’d punched a woman in the face three times. There was no way I’d be allowed to stay on the team, or.. My life was ruined, no matter how I looked at it. I’d completely ruined my entire life. I’d probably be sent to the Birdcage, even.

Okay, no, I was being stupid. I wiped my tears with my sleeve and looked back at the woman. She was barely even bleeding, and she was a  _ murderer. _ We were in the battlefield, and I’d already attacked some girls in the Marshals’ group. Things were different in these situations; I wasn’t going to be hated for trying to assist in the apprehension of a mob boss.

If anything, Chimera was going to be seen as even more of a threat. They’d probably end up writing his actions off as  _ supporting _ the Red Iron, and thus officially marking him as a villain. Honestly, could I really see him as anything else? If he was really trying to help us, why hadn’t he taken any action? I would have tried to physically push him toward Iron Willy if he didn’t have his forcefield up.

But, then, it disappeared - flickering off of him. His jaw clenched as he stared ahead at us - at  _ her _ \- eyes glazing over for just a second. Moments later, his hands ignited and his eyes lit up with a newfound passion. He took a couple steps forward, raising his arms and pointing them at the two of us. One aimed at her, and one at me. There was no way he’d-

He did.

Before the stream could come out more than a couple inches from his hands, I shifted in. Thoughtlessly, through the sound, I flung myself towards Iron Willy and shifted out a second before landing on her. It’d hurt, but she’d survive, and it’d spare me a few milliseconds of hell. I turned off my comm as quickly as I could, and shifted us both in mere moments before the fire would have collided with us. Even having avoided the stream, my face was a bit warmer than it normally was.

After giving Iron Willy the chance to breathe this time around, she took in the world around her. She was one of the most confusing people I’d ever met, and I was probably the same for her. I’d just tortured her, beat her up, cried onto her face, and then risked my life to save her. Honestly, I was maybe even more confused about my actions than her.

It was so hard to actually think things through like this. I was doing a lot of things I’d never even consider otherwise. It would’ve been easy to write it off as just being reckless, and maybe I just didn’t want to think about how stupid I was anymore, but it seemed like there were some new options in my brain being opened up. Definitions and preconceptions were so dangerous.

None of that really mattered, or at least it didn’t seem like it did, because I needed to focus on getting us to the rest of the group. They’d know what to do with her, and.. I groaned, losing the train of thought again. My ADHD really wasn’t helping here, though it did seem  _ slightly  _ lessened with the loss of some material to work with. Or maybe it was worse? Regardless, coherent thoughts were better than minisculely less scattered ones, so even in the best case scenario it sucked.

Once Iron Willy was as adjusted as anyone newly exposed to my power could be, I started moving us towards the hole in the floor. She had questions she wanted to ask me, I could tell, but her own underling was causing her almost as much frustration as I was experiencing.

When we reached the hole, she froze, refusing to get closer than a few feet away from it. Not caring to or capable of explaining that there was no risk, I pushed her. She managed to get a hold of the edges, while keeping her feet pressed against their own side, splaying across the hole like a starfish. Annoying.

I hopped forward, aiming straight for her back, but she moved out of the way before I could hit her. As I fell, I saw her composing herself on the floor below where we’d fallen from. I didn’t get the best look, though, and soon I was at the bottom of the pit. If I could’ve just  _ said _ something, maybe she’d be down here right now.

The full weight of what had just happened hit me at a bit of a delay. Regardless of my intentions, I’d just given the Red Iron an advantage we couldn’t afford to let them have. Worse, I’d apparently pissed off the incredibly lethal maybe-vigilante, who we were somewhat relying on to secure the victory.

The longer I sat around mourning my mistakes, though, the better the enemy’s chances of victory became, so I quickly looked around for any immediate threats and shifted when I found none. Radar was almost certainly losing any remaining shred of respect he had for me, if any still existed.

I started searching for the group, not hearing any combat and being careful not to get spotted or ambushed while my power was down. If I was caught out on my own any time soon, I was at best fucked and at worst dead. I just needed to find the group, then all would be well.

Idly, I wondered about the possibility of the mess I’d made not being my own fault. What if it was something like Ziz; some odd kind of Master power that I just couldn’t help but subconsciously comply with, thinking it’s my choice all along? I decided, though, that I probably wouldn’t be able to  _ have  _ that thought if I was actually under someone else’s control. Lying wasn’t really an option, with Radar being how he was.

I’d just have to be honest and hope he forgave me. Surely I hadn’t fucked up more than most people did on their first few missions, right? I wasn’t even supposed to be here, so it wasn’t my fault that I’d messed things up - it was  _ Radar’s _ if anything. Kinda, at least.

I groaned, keeping my volume as low as I could to make sure Stroke wasn’t able to take away even  _ more _ of my ability to communicate. Even if no one was around - which was a fact I’d confirmed several times - I needed to vent a little bit. Holding it in resulted in things like earlier. It was very important to remember that people were very definitely not punching bags. Even the really bad ones.

Going through a door, the same as the rest, I came across people. No, just a person, though first glance suggested otherwise. Forge - more recognizable than the rest of the Irons by the way his steampunk-like aesthetic clashed with their overall mafia theme the team had - was roaming the building like I was, accompanied with two machines that passed for human if you didn’t pay much attention. They followed along behind him, led on by a leash.

What was up with this guy’s specialty? Could all Tinkers make life-sized humanoids, capable of walking regardless of their usual restrictions? Surely not, or else this kinda thing would’ve been more popular. Perhaps he’d just stretched himself hard to get these things built, which would certainly make sense given how awkwardly they stumbled around.

Based on what little I’d overheard Boon talk about with Partition, it seemed like stretching yourself like that was technically possible, but not usually worth the effort. Therefore, I could conclude, that these things must have had a particularly good reason for having been made. As such, they were probably worth taking out as quickly as I could manage. I’d need to stop this guy before he made it to my team and messed everything up.

My power came back up a few seconds later, but I wasn’t sure what to do with it. If these things were anything like the turrets on the roof, I wouldn’t be able to shift them in. Meteor Maid’s power seemed to be as easy to turn on as my own, so there must have been a fraction of a second to act that was far shorter than a human could manage. The last thing we needed was for me to get knocked out and used as a hostage, and I wasn’t exactly jumping at the idea on a more personal level.

What could I do, then? I had a jetpack, and.. that was about it. As undignified as it made me feel, my best option was probably to try to distract the guy until someone else showed up to help me out. Depending on the capabilities of the robots, it could end up that I had to leave the room mid-shift to avoid getting completely fucked over, so I took off the jetpack and put it at the door’s base to stop it from closing. Of all the tech to hand over to the enemy, that was probably the least risky for them to get.

By the time I’d put the makeshift door jam there, though, he’d already gone to the next room, so I picked it back up and rushed over to the door. There wasn’t the sound of combat, so I was safely able to assume that my plan could still work; that he hadn’t gone into the fight, and that I wasn’t about to join as well. I went through the door, sneakily as I could, and-

_ Pradle. _ Not a traditional expletive, I was sure, but it brought the same cheap relief as I remembered proper swearing giving. I shifted before Forge, who had been waiting for me on the other side, was able to punish me for my mistake. Apparently he’d heard me at some point when I’d first spotted him. It was a risky move, what he’d done, but it nearly worked out for him.

I really wished I’d brought him in with me, so I could separate him from his bots. They looked like they were preparing some sort of attack, so I didn’t really want to take the risk of exiting for a couple seconds just to try to bring him into the blue. There was even the possibility that his leash would allow him to bring the bots in, given how weird my power was about that, so it really wasn’t a great idea to begin with.

I’d gotten kinda used to the relaxed feeling of roaming around, and now I needed to rush to make a decision on what to do. The basic plan still stood - I needed to distract the guy. A simple but effective enough option was to dash to the other side of the room, to one of the doors. I could  _ probably _ get through before the bots responded to my sudden disappearance and discovered my new position.

So that’s what I did, wishing I’d just gone through the actions rather than sit there and plan them out, as the extra few seconds could be an issue later on. That was the biggest lesson I’d learned from the Marshals: I  _ needed _ to get better at time management. It was a problem in my day to day life, so it was no surprise it plagued me as a hero.

I shifted out and turned the doorknob, but it was locked. Of course it fucking was, why wouldn’t it be? Turning around to see just how fucked I was, I watched as the bots fired shots in front of them. They weren’t smart enough to realize I’d moved - or maybe they simply couldn’t move once they’d started charging - but Forge was more than aware of my change in position. He’d probably been filled in on the nature of my power by the rest of his team, and was trying to catch me off guard so I couldn’t negate his attack.

He casually pulled out a pistol and took a shot at me. I jumped out of the way, but the beam curved through the air to hit me in the back. As the energy discharged into my spine, I felt my whole body grow numb. It wasn’t as powerful as a non-homing shot would have been, but it was enough that followup attacks would be easier to hit.

My power came back up a couple seconds after I was hit, acting as definitive proof that the time I’d wasted had fucked me over. I shifted in before I could get even more fucked up and stumbled to the still-open door with the bots. Walking was a hassle, but I could still do it with a little effort. I was fairly certain that it would be harder once I left the blue, so I had to get far away from this place to recover before I could exit.

The bots, of course, served to make my life as difficult as could be. They’d begun the process of turning around, but had moved even closer to the doorframe in the process. I couldn’t squeeze through no matter how hard I tried; I’d have to climb over them. That was easier said than done, even without the ability to speak.

Reaching a hand up to one of their heads, I loosely grasped for a sorta-opening. It reminded me of those bits in cars that you can pull down and hold onto. I never really understood the purpose of those things, but I wasn’t in the right state of mind to tackle that mystery. With my other hand on the left bot’s right shoulder, I lifted my leg up as far as I could. Barely, just barely, I got it to slump over the  _ right _ one’s shoulder.

Then, I pulled, as hard as I could, and I managed to get a little over half of my body weight on the other end. Letting gravity do most of the work, I collapsed onto the floor headfirst, wordlessly thanking my power once again for not letting that hurt. After a moment to recover - much shorter than it otherwise would have been - I used the bots and the doorframe to pull myself onto my feet.

Trailing my hand along the wall, I slowly worked to make my way to the other end of the room. As much as I needed to get far away before powering down, I didn’t have the option. I just had to hope I could slide through the door and be annoying and useless enough that Forge wouldn’t follow. If I was  _ really _ lucky, he wouldn’t notice me and would end up convinced I could go through walls. Even then, though, my goal to distract him had definitely failed, beyond half a minute or so. A useless disabled idiot was still a useless disabled idiot, even when they could phase through obstacles.

Was half a minute good enough? I might’ve missed it during my fight with Forge, but there still didn’t seem to be any signs of large group combat. Had Hush and the rest of her team come to visit, silencing the battlefield? We’d  _ all _ be fucked in that case, so I had no choice but to ignore that possibility. With that done, I couldn’t really expect thirty seconds of a distraction to be sufficient, but I couldn’t afford to go forward with that plan.

Finally reaching the door, I put my hand on the doorknob and let the world start up again. As expected, the weight of the world was very rapidly becoming something I couldn’t handle. I barely managed to slide through the door and close it behind me before I had to splay out on the floor and rest. Thankfully, for whatever reason, Forge didn’t come after me. I should’ve leaned up against the door to stop him from coming through, but it didn’t end up being an issue.

Of course, with all of my focus on my thoughts rather than on trying to not fuck up every action I took, I realized another action I’d fucked up: I’d dropped the jetpack when I was first shot, a mix of the shock and the numbness in my hand. My existence was basically to be a living bundle of mistakes, it seemed. I sighed, though the force in it was severely lacking due to not having much strength in my lungs.

Meteor Maid was almost certainly fucked, right? She had to be, if just a tiny blast was enough to make me struggle to breathe somewhat. She’d gotten a point-blank explosion of the stuff, followed by two shots far stronger than what I’d been hit with. What would happen if she died? What would Radar do? One shot had completely shut down an entire half of Blare’s body, so there didn’t seem like much room for survival.

I wanted to think that the Red Iron wouldn’t allow this kinda thing to happen. This was a pretty surefire way to get the whole town to take you down, and maybe even Birdcaged. The first night I’d gone out in costume, though, they’d just killed some guy’s wife. Kids, too, maybe? I couldn’t remember. I wondered how that man was doing, regretting never asking Radar about it. That seemed fitting; I’d gotten really good at stacking regrets on top of regrets.

With the relative free time, I thought of Quinn. Did  _ she _ regret her actions? When it came down to it, was she patching up the David situation because she actually felt bad, or because she knew it would cause damage to her relationships? Was I feeding into it by agreeing to drop it once she made the most minimal of fixes, or was that just what a good friend was supposed to do? 

If I could have properly scolded myself, I would have. Even when I wasn’t much more than a door jam, less effective than a hunk of metal, I needed to not be distracting myself with my personal problems. Last time had cost me a precious couple seconds while I tried to transition back into planning mode. When it came down to it, I wasn’t Riley Green at the moment. I was Shift - a very  _ useless _ Shift, but still Shift - and I needed to act the part.

Deciding I’d waited long enough, especially since things wouldn’t be getting any easier with time, I forced myself to get up. The wall was unsurprisingly my best friend in this endeavor, once I’d managed to crawl over to it. I probably could’ve managed it without anything to lean against, but this wasn’t the time to test my luck.

The numbing was only pretty nice, despite how it was impacting my ability to function. I hadn't taken anywhere near as much of a beating as in the fight against the Marshals, but there was still a bit of an ache that the haze was helping cover up. With luck, I'd be able to forego painkillers for a while. Not that I ever really had a great time with luck-based things.

Finally getting off of the ground, I allowed myself to feel a bit of pride. Now I just needed to trail along the wall and I'd be.. Fuck, what even was I supposed to do at this point? There wasn't much I could do to help, and there was a lot I could fuck up. These were the big leagues, too, where my mistakes could actually get a lot of people hurt, or even killed.

For a brief moment, I considered whether or not I could be counted as responsible for what happened with Meteor Maid. Not in any reasonable way, surely.. But.. Maybe if she’d held her hand just above before powering down, or I’d counted down better, she could’ve sent the turret flying before it reacted? I tossed away the thought as best as I could. Just needed to focus on the now, I could deal with that later.

I could just run, couldn’t I? I was supposed to leave originally, but Radar seemed to want me around. Was that still the case, now? With how much I’d fucked up after splitting off on my own, would he even still want me around? Really, looking back, every single part of this mission involved at least something going horribly wrong. Usually, they were directly my fault. Was I cursed? Everything I’d done had gone poorly. I’d either sabotaged my teammates or let villains get a major advantage - usually both.

As I stumbled along, I focused on the one thing I might be able to fix: Chimera. I’d set him off, somehow, and now he was being an aggro pyro mess. What had I done? He’d spent so long doing nothing about Iron Willy, no matter my prodding, and then just suddenly attacked both of us. Had my insistence on him doing something pissed him off? More importantly, what was he doing now? He couldn’t have been on a rampage, or else I’d have heard something. Right?

No, focus. Why did he attack? He didn’t use the forcefield on us, which from what I’d heard would be far more lethal than the fire, so maybe he didn’t actually want us to get too hurt? The fire, now that I thought about it, hadn’t burnt down the building. From what I could remember, it didn’t tend to set things on fire in the same way as normal flames. My best guess was that, for some reason, he wanted to scare one or both of us but not actually harm us.

He’d seen me teleport, so he knew that was something I could do. Maybe he wanted to hurt  _ her _ and just expected me to shift away? Overall, he seemed.. not  _ friendly, _ but kind. His actions tended to lean towards what I could only describe as considerate, when he wasn’t acting unpredictably.

Something popped into my mind, an image. The glaze in his eyes during the power shift; maybe his different powers were more than just that? Maybe they were linked to different emotions. Maybe he wasn’t unpredictable, but had mood swings, like Quinn. To most, those would seem like random bursts of whatever emotion, but I’d gotten very good at telling when these things would occur.

If my theory was right, that could explain the seemingly sudden shift from calm and reserved to intense, burning aggression. Or, just as likely, I was looking too deep into something that could easily just be a short loss of focus as a result of choosing a powerset. He very well could have just decided to switch to the flamethrowers because he was ready to attack, and the shield had been up so he’d be safe while he bided his time.

That line of thought was going nowhere, so I shifted to a new one. Why was he so focused on the Red Iron? Had someone he cared about been hurt, like the man I saved? A personal vendetta? Maybe that was even what caused him to trigger. If that was the case, though, surely he would’ve taken action against Iron Willy sooner, right?

Something else, then. If he was aiming to target the biggest threats, Hush and her monsters would’ve been a better main focus. He’d fought them before, so it wasn’t a matter of power level, but he was never as interested in them as the Red Iron. One could probably argue that the Red Iron had more  _ potential _ for evil, but it’d take a lot for them to get there.

Maybe it was the specific  _ kind _ of threat that the Red Iron posed? Hush’s monsters could provide chaotic destruction and terror beyond anyone else in the city, but the Red Iron were  _ organized. _ They were ruthless in their efficiency, and in a way they fit right in with the foundations that kept all of Remure afloat. They were like bricks laced with acid - the building blocks we didn’t know to avoid until it was too late, seeping into our defences and rotting.

Was Chimera worried about things like that? I mean, almost everyone cared about where they lived being relatively safe, but did he  _ really _ care? More than others? Perhaps, but there wasn’t any significant evidence of that.

What was I missing? Surely there was something I wasn’t realizing, something obvious. I was stupidly good at missing important details, so there was surely some little thing that would put it all together, some puzzle piece that would answer my questions.

Where was I now? I’d aimlessly been wandering around, thinking about this strange enigma of a man, and I’d completely lost track of everything else. How much time had passed? I still didn’t hear any sounds of fighting, but it wasn’t too unreasonable to think I might have traveled so far away that it would be inaudible, given no one would be shouting or anything.

Before me stood a couple doors. What else was new? This entire building was filled with endless barrages of gateways to other stupid bridge rooms. That’s what they all were: bridges. I was on the world’s most idiotically labyrinthine bridge. I knew where I’d started, but where was I headed? What cheese stood at the end, taunting my rat brain? Prodding me onward, forcing me to continue forward.

For who knows how long, I’d been going around on instinct alone. Allowing my garbage-tier autopilot to take over was dangerous even when I  _ wasn’t _ in the middle of a battlefield, but now I was basically just backflipping into death’s arms.

Oh, if only I could backflip. The numbing had reached a bit of a peak, and was now starting to drip away. That was nice, even if it was still worse than when it’d started. Something to look forward to, I guessed.

Could I even backflip normally? Not really. I considered the idea of maybe trying to learn that while in the blue some day. No risk. Then again, though, there was the chance that I’d just be unable to actually learn any new talents as per the same mechanics keeping me from breaking a few dozen arms. Thank fuck I didn’t have that many arms, I-

As I passed through another nearly identical door, I froze. Forge and Iron Willy were standing in front of me, and next thing I knew I was being hit with two beams before I could even hope to react.

While I was lying on the floor, they talked and talked about things I couldn’t understand. None of it made sense, not even a bit, and I had to wonder if I’d even recognize the language after it came back.

I tried to look up at them to say something - make a weird noise, more realistically - but my neck didn’t budge. So I tried to just move my mouth, but I couldn’t do that either. Even my eyelids, I’d found, were frozen in place.

I’d really fucked up, huh? No silver lining, really, I was just the girl who’d destroyed any chance of winning this mess. I was bait, now, which was an idea I would’ve laughed at in a morbid kinda way, if I was able. Blare was stronger than me in that regard, it seemed.

My head was foggier than I was able to handle, and I’d just started getting used to thinking without words. To have all of my progress thrown out the window, to feel like nothing more than a floppy worm with a slug brain, sucked a lot.

Being picked up and hauled around by some robots who I knew were jabbing into my body, but whose metal wasn’t enough to penetrate the haze of my skin, sucked. I didn’t even consider shifting my assailants and I in until minutes or hours after they’d last been in contact with me, and the robots wouldn’t really care. Being a hostage sucked.

All in all, today just kinda sucked.


	8. Sparks Interlude

_ What an odd girl. _ In all her time working with Stroke and Forge, nothing like  _ this _ had ever happened before. Their powers had been thoroughly tested; there was nothing to suggest any level of a Master element to either of them. No, this girl’s actions were her own in full. She’d practically  _ handed herself over _ to the Irons.

She was new to the Wards, that much was clear on just about every level. There wasn’t a single bone in her body that had been refined for this life, yet. Her tactics were sloppy, her ethics were off-brand, and she was practically traitorous with how much she’d helped her enemies out.

Needless to say, Fiora  _ liked _ her. She was just the right amount of self-sacrificing and reckless that could be filed down into the creation of a wonderful asset. Her power was interesting, too, and was absolutely not being used to its full potential. So many little pieces to work with. Yes, this seemed like it could be the start of a great partnership.

First, though, she had to deal with the current situation. She held her wrist to her mouth and pressed a button, then spoke into the communicator.

“Stroke, Failsafe, abandon the pursuit and head downstairs.”

“Yes sir,” Failsafe responded. Stroke wasn’t exactly  _ mute, _ but she didn’t much care for talking.

“Magister, keep them distracted. We’ll come around behind and clean up the situation.” He grunted in response, apparently too focused to engage in basic etiquette. It didn’t matter, and it wasn’t anything particularly  _ new. _ He was an incredibly useless tool - too old to be trained out of his bad habits. Too stubborn in his stupidity.

With the orders given, she returned to inspecting the young heroine. Her features were just the slightest bit rough, but in a somewhat uneven way, as if to suggest that she was in the process of growing into strength.  _ Coming of age, if you will. _

Fiora had never considered working with a child, before, but this one seemed worth the effort. Maybe it was some slightly dangerous indulgence in nostalgia, but  _ she _ had started young, and she saw a bit of herself in the girl.  _ Look at me now. Top of the world. _

She sighed and stared down at the girl. Her  _ subject. _ Forge didn’t care - he wasn’t paid to care, and he rarely did anything he wasn’t paid to. He probably wouldn’t even eat if not for Fiora’s insistence. Without him, this girl - she’d need a new name - was a spectacle only to one, at present. _ In just a short while, you will be mine. _ In a way, she already was, but there was still room for error.

The only thing keeping her away from what was rightfully hers was time, but she had never felt quite as impatient as in that moment.  _ Waiting _ was something one had to do a lot, when working with capes in the way she did. Taking a moment to analyze the situation was what separated her from the freakish thugs of Remure - those who would claim to be ‘super’ despite deserving the title far less than she did.

None of this was to say that she felt particularly highly of herself. She was in no way a narcissist - she simply understood what strengths she  _ did _ have very well, and knew what her enemies lacked. Beyond anything else, she’d never met anyone who understood their flaws quite as well as she knew her own. With that knowledge, of course, came strategies to counteract those weaknesses; to become something better than them.

Most in the business were able to make do with their powers alone, as they often seemed to cover up those fatal flaws sufficiently enough for the average person. To overcome everything she had  _ without _ such assistance was what really made her stand above the rest. Who knew what she’d become whenever she ultimately got powers of her own?

The thought was somewhat chilling, in the same way that it was empowering. People were so often  _ changed _ when they triggered; she’d seen it ages ago with her old boss. The powers frequently became a crutch, encouraging softening in otherwise hardened criminals. She could have no faith in the idea that things would be different since she knew what to expect, as that was surely the same idiotic desire that led people to letting their guards down in the first place.

Everyone was so eager to rely so heavily on that which could be easily taken away. There were thousands of Trumps in the world, and more than a few of them were the kind that could strip you of everything and put you down without much issue. If anything, Fiora wanted to be a Trump of that sort. Failsafe and his kin were the rare few capes who were never lulled into losing their edge - instead encouraged to grow even stronger.

Of course, once again, she was getting ahead of herself. Right now she needed to focus on getting her team away and into one of the bunkers. With Failsafe and Stroke having finally arrived, they were all off. Magister was busy being an unwitting martyr. By the sounds of it he was doing a fairly lousy job, but it would have to do. He was so close to that ‘promotion’, too. Such a shame that his replacement fit better on a team than under a bus.

* * *

“Alright, good, you’re all settled.” The girl had been given a few hours to stew after waking up, and now Fiora decided to give her a visit. Nothing was worse than loneliness in an unknown location. “Can you understand me at all, yet?”

“Yruhh..” Upon spouting relative nonsense, she scowled at herself and at her captor. Despite the clear desire to rebel, she nodded.

“Good. I’ll speak in simple words so you can follow along, okay?” She nodded, frustrated with the reality that she had to be talked down to like a toddler. “Good, good. Thank you for being so cooperative.” While not a traditional Master effect, people at this stage of recovery tended to be a little worse at critical thinking; accepting what they heard as truth slightly more easily.

“So, are you comfortable?” The girl didn’t respond, but a small trace of confusion suggested it was because Fiora’s word choice had been too obtuse. “Mm, alright, how about..”  _ Asking her if it’s nice here is sure to lead to a no, so let’s be a bit more careful.  _ “Mm, are you cozy?” She looked down at the blanket that had been put on her, then back up and shrugged, frowning.

“Right.”  _ Not ready to talk, it seems.  _ While she could certainly use the girl’s impaired state to her advantage, that didn’t seem like a great way to start off their relationship. “Well, I’m going to give you some time to think, alright?” The girl responded by turning her head to the side. “Alright.”

She left the room, making sure to close and lock the inner door before opening the outer one. The girl had tried to escape soon after when she first came to, and seemed to be held back by the double door system. It had originally been put in place to contain Brandlelord - now long gone - so it was nice to see it able to find use again.

The instant she’d left the room, she went back to idly monitoring the girl through the hidden camera and considering her recent past. More specifically, to give the many questions surrounding Chimera more thought. The day’s events had brought even more to the pile.

How had he known she was powerless? The utter refusal to attack her on that foundation alone, followed by the sudden decision to change that position.. None of it made sense. Almost none of the secrets since he had first arrived had been answered. Why was he so insistent on attacking the Red Iron, specifically?

One possibility, which Fiora had considered many times, was that Chimera was a surviving victim of the Red Iron’s earlier actions. She hadn’t always been as pure in motive; the early days were filled with quite a few displays of disgusting force.

If he was of such an origin, though, it seemed more likely that he’d be from  _ before _ the Red Iron - that he’d have been a victim of her ex-boss’s old organization. He might have even worked  _ with _ her, all those years ago, under a different name. Maybe he assumed she would have triggered by this point, and so to find that she was still powerless left him with a moral dilemma. One which he eventually worked through to the conclusion that she still deserved his punishment.

That was only just as likely as anything else, though. Capes were frustrating, breaking all of the rules she had learned growing up. With his basket full of powers, maybe he had some way of knowing about her secret.  _ Good thing he doesn’t work with the Protectorate, then. _

With no real progress made, Fiora decided to drop the subject and return focus to  _ her _ subject. She had a lot of work to do, and only so much time to do it. By all means, it was a completely unreasonable task to try to tackle without any sort of parahuman ability to help. She really should’ve given up before she even began. But that had always been where she  _ thrived. _

* * *

“Your sense of time’s off, right?”

“What?” She blinked a few times, which Fiora saw as asking her to elaborate more than the words had.

“Your power - you spend a lot of time in it, and you’ve been losing track, yeah?”

“I-” She swallowed, cutting herself off, then forced her lips together in refusal to talk. This process had repeated several times, but she was being worn down. She was a curious girl, far too interested in the world around her to ignore the various questions being thrown at her.

"Do you know what day it is?" After a long minute of careful consideration, the girl spoke up.

"Monday?" Fiora winced and gave a sympathetic smile.

"It's Friday." The girl was taken aback, all of the curves of her contorting face visible without her mask. "Mhm, almost a full week."

"No fucking way. I only regained the ability to talk yesterday."

"Days are longer without the sun and moon to guide us, child." She took a sip of her coffee. "Child? Should I call you that, or something else?" The girl glared at her. She'd apparently been called  _ ‘Shift’ _ beforehand, which was a name Fiora aimed to all but  _ erase _ from the kid’s identity. "Child it is, then.

“You know, a week is a long time. Even longer if you’ve been using your power a lot. Have you been?” The girl tried her best not to react, managing to only have a few of the muscles on her face move about. “Maybe you have, and that could add whole extra minutes, or hours, or  _ days.. _ Only you know how much time you’ve spent in there, but I suggest you think on that.

“Still, even without that.. Well, I guess I just expected more of a fight. Nothing on the news, no sign of anyone searching for you..” She took another sip, watching the girl try to process this new information. “Looks like you weren’t a very good hostage, is what I’m saying.” After a long, careful bout of consideration, the girl spoke up again.

“Not possible.”

“No? I mean, no offense, but after what happened at our base, they might even think you were a spy. Come in, pretend you got hit by Stroke’s power, sabotage everything.. You really weren’t performing at your best in there.”

“No, Radar..” She spent a moment to double check a thought, needing to take a bit longer to confirm her reality than before. “Radar knew Stroke got to me.”

“Maybe he did, but that’s just one unimportant piece of the puzzle. I hate to break it to you, kid, but I think you got ditched.”

“No.” She shook her head, reassuring herself of something she was struggling to believe. “It’s only been a few days, you’re lying.”  _ That’s more than the two she thought before. Progress. _

“Mm, well, I’ll give you some space.” She stood up and stretched. “You want something to eat? Dinner?”

“No.” A favorite word of hers, it seemed. That was something that could be changed with time.

“Very well. If you change your mind, you know what to do.” She hadn’t used the intercom even once, to the disappointment of everyone who knew about her. Even still, there was no doubt that she would be worth the effort. Fiora left the windowless room and locked the door behind her. It was a simple setup, but Forge had been wrong when he guessed at her being able to go through walls. As such, there was no reason to keep her any more contained than the current arrangement. She was a  _ guest,  _ after all.

Fiora went off to prepare her own food and returned to mulling over possible names for the girl.  _ Transit? Route?  _ None of them had the same  _ sting _ as the rest of her underlings - Magister notwithstanding, as he was never intended to be a permanent part of the team. Each of them was meant to be concise and orderly, to make the weight of  _ ‘Iron Willy’ _ hit harder. Only the most powerful of capes could afford to have stupid names like that, and one couldn’t deny that it aided the mafia-esque look she was going for.

_ Pass? Convoy?  _ Nothing was more frustrating than the idea that someone had come up with a better name for her own organization than  _ herself. _ Shift, though relatively bland, was  _ perfect _ for what she wanted. No, she could do better.

_ Think of it internally, rather than focusing on the external. She doesn’t teleport, she stops the world and enters a.. pocket dimension, maybe? It doesn’t matter. Everything’s an outline, lightly shaded in- _ She grinned, being hit with the perfect name.  _ Blueline. _

Her celebration was cut short as the timer for the oven buzzed. Moving to turn it off, she realized that she’d actually heard the intercom alert. After a couple seconds to compose herself and put back on her guardian voice, she answered.

“Yes?”

“Um..” The girl came through between small bursts of static. The system would need to be replaced eventually, but there hadn’t been much use for it in years. “I’m.. hungry, I guess. Tried to sleep but couldn’t.”

“My food will be done in a moment, would you like to try some? It’s pasta, got little bits of garlic and-”

“Yes.” A moment of carefully calculated silence came before she said more. “Um, please.” Her smile was renewed, knowing that at least  _ some _ of her conditioning was working.

“Be there in a minute.”

* * *

“Good morning- Oh, you’re already awake, good.” Fiora knew Blueline had woken up a few minutes earlier, but selling the idea of privacy was important. She placed the girl’s breakfast - pancakes and fruit - on the table, then took a seat. “Did you sleep well?”

“Not really.” She started diving into the food without any hesitation.

“That’s too bad.” Fiora sat back in her chair and watched the girl eat. “We’re coming up on a week and a half, you know.”

“Really?”

“Mhm.” In actuality, it had only been four days filled with a lot of care and focus on making the girl think she was losing time. The days had been plagued by a significant amount of heat from the Protectorate. They had at least a few people occupying the Red Iron headquarters at all times, and an uncountable amount scouting for any suspicious individuals. In all likelihood, they’d have to return to working underground for a long while.

How long had it been since they’d gone public with their location? Half a year? The original reasoning behind it - attempting to build more of an image to attract new members - hadn’t really worked out. Magister wasn’t an amazing pull, and it had been only him in those six months. It had been only a matter of time, anyways, until something like the events of last Saturday happened, so a return to the old wasn’t all too troubling.

“I don’t..” the girl spoke, putting an end to the internal chatter. “I don’t understand why you’re being so nice to me.” She took another small bite, then elaborated. “I attacked you.”

“I mean, of course you did. You were doing what the heroes told you to do, I don’t blame you for that.” Unlike a lot of what she’d said the past few days, this was genuine. The assault on her eardrums, and later comparably weak physical force, was the exact seed of her interest in the first place. Sat in front of her was a ruthless, creative,  _ villain _ of a girl.

“Can..” She sighed, then pushed her plate away. “Ugh, can I be honest about something?”  _ Perfect. _

“Yes? Of course, what is it?”  _ Is this the turning point? _

“I, uh..” She shuffled around in her seat, avoiding eye contact. “I know it’s not been that long.”  _ Ah. _ “Since you took me, I mean.”  _ Disappointing. _ Fiora kept up the act, just in case. “But, um..”

“Mm?”

“Well, I don’t know, I..” She sighed and held her head in her hands, elbows digging into the table. “I guess I don’t even blame you? And I.. Just, you’ve been so nice, and.. I haven’t really felt this appreciated in.. ever? It’s.. I mean, fuck, I know you’re bad and this is bad and you’re  _ lying _ to me and everything, but I..” She clenched her jaw, ashamed of herself. “Can you buy me some razors?”

“Wh-” Fiora blinked in confusion. It took a lot to take her off guard, but  _ that _ certainly did it. A deep breath was all it took to compose herself, though. “Mm, I can, yes.” If it meant sweetening her up a bit more, a few extra dollars weren’t much of a request. “So long as it’s not to off yourself, of course.” The joke didn’t seem to land. She was never fantastic at jokes; never had much reason to learn them.

“Uh.. yeah, no, I..” the girl mumbled, seemingly not wanting to be heard. “I just need to shave.”

“You know, a wax would be faster, if you’d prefer-”

“No- Um..” She looked down at her feet, hiding herself as best as she could behind her short hair. “It has to be razors.”

“You realize that makes my statement earlier sound a bit less implausible, right? All bullshit aside, I’m not the kind who’s okay with having a child’s blood on my hands. All of this, really, is near the edge of my limits.” She reached a hand forward and placed it on the table to reassure the girl. “I’m not a bad woman, I promise you that.”

“I don’t really care? Er, fuck, I mean- Like that’s great and all, and I’m kinda mad at myself for sorta believing you, but that doesn’t matter, I just..” She groaned. “It’s for my face. Maybe it hasn’t been a week and a half, but it’s still..”

_ Oh. _ It was starting to show; the beginnings of facial hair.  _ Right. _

* * *

“She’s a  _ guy?!” _ Kid Napper burst out of his dream, hitting his head on the metal bars of the bunk bed on the way up. “Ow, fuck!” He rubbed at the spot that would almost definitely bruise and groaned. “Damn it.”

“Sup, Kid?” Fumer’s voice was deep and slow, pulling from far more than just his lungs. The screen that separated them muffled the giant’s voice. Little details that he had to remember; to get readjusted to.

“So, Fiora, right?”  _ Nah, nah, what was it..? _ “Uhh, Iron Willy, I mean.”

“Uh huh.”

“So she’s got this chick, maybe a couple years older than me, up in this warehouse on Third. Like a- a uh, well, hah, it’s like they did it cause they knew I was coming to town.” He chuckled. “She  _ kidnapped _ her!” Fumer joined in on the laughing, giving off a familiar  _ wheeze _ . “Yeah, so this has gone on for a few days or so, right? And it’s  _ just now _ this woman realizes the precious little girl she’s training’s a fuckin’  _ boy!” _

The two of them went on with their laughing even harder for a few moments until a few loud bangs came from against the door.

“Shut up!” Forecast shouted, exasperated and tired.

“Sorry boss!” The two responded in unison. The guy was real rough, like a prickly pile of sandpaper, but he sure was better than that sweet-talking, lie-lipped vixen of a lady. A few moments later, he came into the room.

“You get anything good?” He didn’t sit, despite the chair right next to him. Wanted it to be brief, it seemed.

“Yessir, a whole bunch. Guy pretending he’s a girl got holed up in a Red Iron hideout, Willy’s trying to turn him into her kinda villain, not working so well.”

“Did you catch where this was happening?”

“Yeah, yeah, of course, on the way in. Was all wispy and fogged up and all that, but I still managed to see the street sign before I locked onto her. It’s on Third, right up not too far from where we found her roaming about.”

“The ‘guy’ - Shift, right?”

“Yeahuh, one of the Wards. Going by Blueline now, or Willy’s trying to get him to.”

“Mm.” Forecast leaned against the door, opening it slightly to look at something outside of the room. “Well, your dream was cut short. Back to it, then, and try for her again. Maybe the guy. Whoever you think you can get to easiest.” With that, he left the room.

“On it, boss!” Kid called out through the door, before hearing the man open and close the front door. When it was fully locked, he went back to talking with Fumer. “Alrighty, you got any for me or am I gonna have to do this myself?”

“Yep.” He opened up a small window in the screen, green fog immediately leaking out with a hefty punch. “Get it while it’s hot.” Kid pushed himself up off the bed, holding up the right side of his head, and scrambled over. A couple inhales later, the screen was closed and he was stumbling back to bed.

“Thanks Fumer,” he slurred. Laying his head on the pillow-shaped tumor that jutted out of him, he sunk down into the overwhelming softness and slog, drifting off to a drug-induced sleep. Within moments, his soul was ripping out of his body, and he was off to track down the Red Iron creeps.

Twisting through the endless, hazy world, he headed North. Just a short while and he’d be there, he just needed to stay fifteen or so feet above the ground to make sure he didn’t slip into the wrong person. Avoiding buildings was also important, for similar reasons, but was a little harder to manage. The essence of a person was a racecar with no brakes and constant drifting, so even with all the practice in the world it was pretty uncontrollable.

Still, with a whole lotta effort, Kid made it to Third street and into the building. Two people were in a room together, and one was alone. Deciding that the two had better chances of being one of the two targets than the one, because he was pretty sure that was how math worked, he headed that way.

Swirling around through the walls, he zeroed in on the two losers with  _ no _ idea what was coming for them. It was only when he was uncontrollably headed directly for one of them that he realized it was Fiora and  _ Forge, _ not Blueline.  _ Turn right, turn right, turn right right right right-! _

* * *

_ Fuck. _ Forge blinked at his own inner speech. Where had that come from? Mm, it wasn’t really important. He instead focused his attention back to the conversation with his boss.

“Mhm.” He couldn’t quite recall what had just been said, but what had come before that still stuck in his brain. More and more plans regarding Willy’s pet project. He wasn’t really sure what she saw in the kid, but that didn’t matter.

“Is that all..?” She looked a tad disappointed. “I mean, I know you’ve never been much for advice, and our talks are more for the purposes of venting on my part” - she let out a mix between a sigh and a laugh - “but I figured you might have something to say?”

“Mm.” He took a moment to try to remember what he’d missed, but he’d simply been too distracted to hear it. “My apologies, I think I haven’t had enough coffee. May I?” She nodded, and he went to go pour himself some more.

“I just..” She sighed again. “With this new hurdle, I’m not sure this is what’s best for us, you know?” He didn’t respond, knowing his input wouldn’t add anything. “The people we’d have to deal with to get her what she wants.. I truly think she could be an invaluable resource, but is it really worth the cost, both monetarily and with regards to our safety?”

“Sorry again - can I have a refresher on what she wants? Not the razors, I’m assuming?”

“No, not the razors.” She looked down at her own coffee before chugging what was remaining in her mug. “Hormone Replacement Therapy. It’s a much longer process and less effective to do it through legal means, but it’s dangerous going underground for it. She wants us to serve as her safety net.”

“Ah.”

“Not to mention, I mean, I enjoy her.” She got up and brought her mug over to the sink, washing it out. “More than I probably should.” After she was done cleaning, she went back to her seat and leaned back into the chair. “It’s been over a decade since he ran off, but I guess I’m taking after my old boss. Great guy, raised me well.

“I suppose I’m just yearning for a child of my own, in that same sense. Someone to pass my legacy onto. She’s a bit old for it, but I think she’ll be a fast learner. I’d expected my successor to not have powers yet, since the young don’t have them as often. It’s clear she’s new to them, though, so I can still be an integral part of her time learning how to work with them. Mm.. Do you see what I see in her? Am I rushing it, finding potential that can easily be matched but regarding it as incredible just because I’m.. impatient..?”

Forge wasn’t sure how to respond. He’d never gone through the process of being indoctrinated into the ‘family’; he’d originally joined just for the money. One could argue that the bond he’d built with Willy was more genuine as a result, but once again that wasn’t something he cared about enough to distinguish. The entire idea of crafting someone into a perfect leader was fairly alien to him, but..

“I think anyone loyal enough to you can be trained into a fantastic successor.” A bit of a non-answer, but she appreciated it for what it was worth.

“You’re right. I’ll go through with the plan then. Failsafe should be able to handle such a transaction, fitted with your tech.” She nodded to herself. “Mhm, yes, I’ll give her the good news.” She got up and dragged a hand along his shoulder on the way back to the guest room. “Thank you, Forge.” He nodded, and she was off.

With the sudden lack of company or directive, Forge set out to decide on a course of action. First things first, he really didn’t  _ need _ the coffee, and wasn’t particularly in the mood for more. As such, he poured the half-cup down the drain. The whole pot would be following the same fate soon enough, so he didn’t have to worry about Willy being upset about wastage.

_ Now what? _ The question bounced around, persisting more than it usually had to. What was he to do? Focus on tech? For whatever reason, he didn’t really have much interest in that idea at the moment. No, he wanted to do something engaging. Maybe he could find something around the house to do?

He began wandering through the building, carefully inspecting each room with more care and attention than he would normally give. Surely if he looked hard enough, he could find  _ something _ satisfying. It wasn’t very often he was left without orders, so  _ something _ of value needed to come of the free time. Despite his searching, though, nothing was quite satisfying enough.

That is, until he heard the chatter of Willy and Blueline. Normally, he would pay it no mind. In the recent past, he  _ had _ paid it no mind, but this time.. Something felt off -  _ he _ felt off - and he felt like the solution would be to listen in. It wasn’t like she would mind, right? She was going to tell him about it later, anyways, so no issue should arise from simply cutting out the middleman. Satisfied with the logic, he crept closer.

“..about my parents?” the girl asked. “Or, I guess just my dad. I can’t just.. He  _ knows _ I’m a cape, he’s the one who signed me up for the Wards, I can’t just.. I mean, he’ll know if I’m a villain, you know?”

“That’s where my plan comes into play.” Of course she had a solution; she was never without one. “You will remain as a member of the Wards, and can even help them out. I have no quarrels with that, for now, so long as you keep in mind which of your teams is providing you with your dreams. There’s no doubt in my mind that you will not be allowed to participate in fights against us anymore, so that shouldn’t ever become an issue.

“With regards to  _ Radar..” _ She paused, most likely making a last minute decision on a few possibilities. “I’m going to teach you how to talk to him without giving up your secrets. This will take a while to reach a point of reliability, so for the meantime I’ll be expecting you to avoid interacting with him as best as possible.”

“He’ll want to ask me about my experiences here.”

“Tell him you don’t want to talk about it, that talking about it would cause you significant distress. That’s not a lie, right?”

“..I guess not.”

“That’s the foundation of how to deal with him, but for now you can just stick to that. Limit all contact with him, and just insist that speaking with him about anything would make you  _ very _ uncomfortable.”

“Mm..”

“So long as you mean what you say in  _ some _ sense, he shouldn’t be able to see through it.”

“Yeah, I-” She cut herself off, continuing a second later. “Sorry, I get the idea. I don’t really want to talk about him, if that’s okay.”

“As long as you understand what to do and what’s at stake.”

“Mhm..”

“Then very well.” Silence followed for a while, leading Forge to think they might even have left the room somehow. Right when he was about to check, they started up again.

“This might be stupid to ask..” the girl murmured.

“You can ask me anything. No judgement.” A sincere statement, and the girl had to have known it as such. If Willy was willing to provide unquestioned support for something as niche as gender issues, there wasn’t much she wouldn’t at least consider.

“Okay, well..” A long pause followed, which seemed to be the girl’s favorite speech pattern. “My friend Quinn. Um, she’s.. She’s my best friend, and maybe my only friend, and I-”

“You want to know if she can join?”

“No, no no. No, I- no, nothing like that.” She nervously laughed. “Uh, no, I guess I was just wondering if I could talk to her about this? I mean, like, I don’t know, she does all sorts of morally dubious shit, and keeps secrets and stuff from heroes and.. whatever, you know? Um.. I mean, like, I kinda don’t want to bring her here because I think she’d.. Well, she doesn’t like you guys much, hah, I didn’t either for a while, but you know?”

“Mhm.”

“Right, okay, back on point, uh- So just I think she.. I think you’d be a bad influence on her, if we’re being honest. I think this whole thing you’ve got going on is.. kinda horrifying and even though I get that there’s  _ reasons, _ it’s still like supervillainy? And, uh, and..” Another long pause. “Sorry.”

“No worries, I understand completely. My operation has been responsible for a lot of things which I’m not particularly proud of. That said, I’m working on rectifying a lot of that. Recent changes - over the past few years or so - have made things  _ far _ more ethical. I still have a business to run, and the occasional mishap occurs, but..” This time the pause came from Willy, rather than the kid. “Mm, do you know what my clientele generally consists of?”

“No.”

“Good, that means my motives are being securely kept under wraps. I work with criminals, obviously, but not just any criminals. Quite a few of them are the worst this city has to offer: pedophiles, murderers, rapists, arsonists, hard drug dealers.. You name it.

“I’m a loan shark, but I do my job  _ respectfully. _ Most anyone that comes to me is looking to do some shady shit, and most all of them get what they asked for. I play nice with those who aren’t truly heinous, serving as something of a black market bank. The real bad guys get leached for all they’re worth, or I have them killed. Either way, I’m shutting them down for good.

“They’re going to find the means to do what they want with or without my assistance, and if I’m able to eventually put a stop to the bad they do, I consider that a win. I help the poor who really need me, and I destroy the power-hungry bastards of this world. Only reason the heroes don’t like me is because my methods go a bit further than they’re comfortable with, but have no doubt that I’m doing _ everyone  _ a favor.”

“..Huh. I..” She took a moment to take everything in. “That’s.. I mean, I want to believe you, because I.. I, well, I  _ don’t _ want to believe you, but I.. do want to, but.. Whatever, just, what about that guy? First night I went out, this guy’s wife- apparently your team killed his wife in front of him.”

“Mm, how long ago was this?” It probably wasn’t the smartest thing she’d said to the girl, since it implied that that sort of thing happened frequently enough for uncertainty, but at this point it probably didn’t matter.

“Uh, it was.. Second week of.. October? That was last month, right? Yeah, somewhere around there, before the Marshals fight.”

“Ah, yes, him.” She sighed. “Well, I can’t say that was an easy decision. He came to me for money, to help his wife through.. leukemia, I believe? He was poorer than my usual clients, so I offered him a few small jobs to try to cover the cost. Reduce the overall load on him, you know?

“Well, after several months of our arrangement, I decided to pay a visit, guised as one of my employees. When I saw the state of her - just constant, endless suffering - I had to do something about it. It was a choice between letting a man ruin himself financially, physically, and socially just to drag his husk of a wife back and forth through death’s door, or.. To put them out of their misery.

“I won’t lie, part of it was because I knew he’d never be able to pay me back. While I try to do the best good I can, there is still a bottom line that I have to pay respects to. It’s not always the prettiest, but it’s the cost of my line of work.”

“Ah..” She took everything in again, and somehow still had questions. “Sorry to keep.. pressing you on this..”

“Go ahead.”

“Um, just.. Why did you only kill her, and not the guy? He looked so mortified on that bridge, and- God, I almost regret saving him now- He’s-”

“Hush, you did what you had to, as did I,” she assured the girl. “No, I offered to put him down as well, after seeing just how much he was suffering, but he ran away. I can only hope that his life has made a turn for the better, but.. Well, that’s his decision to make, I suppose.”

“And it wasn’t the woman’s?”

“She.. She wasn’t in a state to answer those kinds of questions.” A tense moment of silence overcame them again. “Look, I won’t lie and say I’m  _ happy _ with what happened, but that was the best I could do with the cards I’d been dealt. You understand that, right?”

“Mm..” Before the conversation could continue any longer, the sound of the front door opening and shutting came through the walls. Forge knew it to be Failsafe, and-

Very suddenly, he felt a sense of panic that was exceptionally unlike him. It wasn’t overpowering, but it was  _ there, _ and that alone was enough to stack even more layers of concern.

The emotions snowballed into a giant mess of avoidant  _ craving, _ one which forced Forge to try to escape for long enough to determine what was going on. He dashed through the building as quietly as he could, aiming to keep as much distance from his teammate as possible.

“Forge?” If only he was in a state to appreciate the irony that he’d ended up running headfirst into Failsafe’s line of sight. Unfortunately, he wasn’t, so even more was added to his fear pile.

“Uh.” He cleared his throat, taking a step back. “Yes, hi.”

“What’s up?” The man came closer, to which Forge took several more steps back. Taking the hint, Failsafe stopped. “Dude?”

“Uhm, hmm.” He forced himself to think of the answer to that, and came to the conclusion that something was wrong with  _ him, _ not his teammate. “Either a Master or Stranger is messing with me from outside, or  _ you _ are one. Either way, there’s one simple solution.” He pushed down his feelings, something he was usually able to do with little issue, and quickly ran over.  _ No no no no no- _

* * *

“God fucking damn it!” Kid groaned. His head was searing, vision obscured with black splotches and a heavy fever permeating throughout his body. He reached a hand up to his forehead to try to ease the pain, but the very slight pressure made it worse. “Damn it. Ugh, Fumer, can you turn off the lights?”

“Sure thing.” A few unbearably long seconds later, the room dimmed to a near-pitch-black, and Kid was given some slight reprieve from the pain.

“God..” He shuffled around and leaned his head on the wall. Slightly more readjusted to real life, he took note of the tingling numbness that remained from Fumer’s gas. Whatever pain he was feeling now probably would’ve been a thousand times worse without the guy’s help. “I fuckin’ hate these guys, lemme just say.”

“Sounds like it.”

“Yeah.” After a short while of silence, he wondered something. “Hey, boss already knew about the kidnapping. Probably why he had me checking there, right?”

“Makes sense to me.”

“What do you think he’s planning?”

“Iunno.”

“Mm..” He pondered for a few seconds. “Yeah, no idea either. Hopefully fun, though.”

“Uh huh.”

“Yeah..” He closed his eyes and sunk deeper into the bed. “Hopefully fun.”


End file.
